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THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


BOOKS BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER 


m. S. Service Series 

Illustrations from Photographs taken for U. S. Government. 
Large i2mo. Cloth. Price $1.75 each. 

THE BOY WITH THE U. S. SURVEY 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FORESTERS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. CENSUS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. INDIANS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. EXPLORERS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. MAIL 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. WEATHER MEN 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. NATURALISTS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. TRAPPERS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. INVENTORS 
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. SECRET SERVICE 


flDuseum Series 

Illustrations from Photographs. Large i2mo. Cloth. 
Price $1.75 each. 

THE MONSTER-HUNTERS 
THE POLAR HUNTERS 
THE AZTEC-HUNTERS 
THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


THE WONDER OF WAR IN THE AIR 

THE WONDER OF WAR ON LAND 

THE WONDER OF WAR AT SEA 

THE WONDER OF WAR IN THE HOLY LAND 

With Illustrations from unusual War Photographs and 
Sketches. Large i2mo. Cloth. Price $1.75 each. 

THE BOYS’ BOOK OF THE WORLD WAR 

With Illustrations from Photographs and Diagrams. 
Large i2mo. Cloth. Price $2.50. 

THE BOOK OF COWBOYS 

Illustrated. Large nmo. Cloth. Price $2.00 


LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON 



* 




The Vigo Treasure-Seekers. 

The sunken galleons of the Spanish plate-fleet being explored by divers. 
Over $2,000,000 in gold was recovered. 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


By 

FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER 7 

ti 


‘WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 




Copyright, 1922, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 


J 


All Rights Reserved 
The Wreck-Hunters 



©CI.A661226 ' 


Printed in U. S. A. 



IftotwooO lPr ese 

BERWICK & SMITH CO. 
Norwood, Mass. 


APR 1072 




PREFACE 


Uncounted billions of masterless gold lie at 
the bottom of the sea, awaiting the adventurous 
seeker and the lucky finder. Much of it lies in 
shallow water, yet it is not easy either to dis- 
cover or to reclaim. Many daring deeds have 
been done, and many millions of dollars’ worth 
of ingots of gold and silver, doubloons and 
pieces of eight have been raised from sunken 
Spanish galleons and pirate craft. 

Wrecking and salvage have ever been among 
the most tempting lures of the sea. They 
beckon still. Nay, they beckon even more in- 
sistently than ever, for the toll of treasure ever 
becomes greater and the devices for recovering 
it become more ingenious and more powerful, 
day by day. 

Modern salvage bears little resemblance to 
the piratic wreckers of olden time. It has be- 
come an industry with a tremendous power of 
rescue, and there is a speed and a thrill in great 
salvage operations* that no other work affords. 

6 


PREFACE 


Whether lives, ships or cargoes are to be saved, 
the wreckers must hurry at a reckless pace 
through driving gales and mountainous seas to 
some rocky coast where a vessel is pounding to 
pieces. They must handle a helpless liner in the 
teeth of a hurricane, and, even after a vessel has 
gone down, they will try to raise her from her 
oozy bed. 

The diver lives in a world unknown to other 
men, the world of the bottom of the sea. Al- 
ways strange, and often, terrible, are the adven- 
tures of a diver’s life. Yet wreckers, salvers, 
and divers together form a heroic company to 
wrestle with sea and storm, and many a hapless 
vessel is saved by their daring. To show how 
splendid and how gallant is this work and by what 
great means it is accomplished, is the aim and 
purpose of 


The Author. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

Crabs of the Surf 


♦ 


11 

CHAPTER II 

Master of the Storm 


• 


33 

CHAPTER III 
Captured by Pirates 




62 

CHAPTER IV 
Marooned on the Key 




85 

CHAPTER V 
Ghost Island .... 




109 

CHAPTER VI 

A Duel in the Deep . 


• 


139 

CHAPTER VII 
Spanish Treasure 


9 


170 

CHAPTER VIII 

Masterless Gold .... 




202 

CHAPTER IX 
The Scuttled Ship 


• 


231 

CHAPTER X 
The Phantom Galleon 


• 


256 

CHAPTER XI 
The Coffer-Dam .... 




289 

CHAPTER Xn 
Torpedoed Billions . 




322 


7 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Vigo Treasure-Seekers . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Little Left for Salvage 22 

The Sea Breeds Heroes 23 

An American Liner on the Rocks . . .58 

Where the Element of Time is Essential . . 59 

The Corsair Boards the Papal Galleys . . 70 

Impaled on Jagged Reefs . . . .71 

The Most Famous Ocean Race in History . 84 

Sails Are Not Gone from the Sea ... 84 

Rescued by a Fleet of Schooners ... 85 

Quick Work in a Busy Channel ... 85 

The Hand of the Sea-Fiend . . . .112 

Wrecked in the Open Sea . . . .113 

The End of the Spanish Armada . . .144 

The Treasure-Ship of the Spanish Armada . 145 

The First Diving Bell (1717) .... 148 

The First Diving Dress (1797) . . . 148 

Mechanical Man Outside ; Human, Inside . 149 

The Champion Diver — An American . .154 

Haul up ! Haul up ! A Shark ! ” . . . 155 

A Fight Under the Sea 166 

8 


ILLUSTRATIONS 9 


Divers' Dress of Modern Pattern 

. 

167 

“ She Fired at Us ! We Sank 

Her ! We 


Raised Her I ” 

. 

194 

Patching the Gaping Wound . 

. 

195 

Raising a Torpedoed Liner 

. 

230 

A Straight Lift 

. 

231 

Resurrected .... 

. 

231 

Up from Davy Jones’ Locker . 

. 

246 

Heeled Over, but Afloat . 

. 

246 

The 13,000-Ton Liner, St. Paul 

. 

247 

Pontoons and A-Frames . 

• 

247 

The Phantom Ship . 


288 

The Spectre of the Capes 

. 

289 

Huge Vertical Pontoons at Work 

. 

300 

A Modern Air-Lock in Use 

. 

301 

A Famous Case of Salvage 

. 

326 

Pumping Out the Water . 

. 

327 























* 


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THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


CHAPTER I 

CRABS OF THE SURF 

“Ay! But who ran her on the reef?” came 
the suspicious query. 

“ Or Admiral Voley,” as he was known from 
one of the Bahamas to the other, roared back at 
his son with hurricane violence: 

“ What’s that to you, Swab-Face? ’Tis 
Providence that runs a vessel on a reef! ” 

“ And Providence that puts up false lights as 
a decoy, eh, Father? ” 

The old wrecker glared across the table. 

“ Ye’d warn her, I s’pose,” he sneered, “ an’ 
ask the skipper to chuck ye a sixpence for yer 
pains.” 

“ I wouldn’t wreck her deliberately, any- 
how!” Captain Jerry Voley countered sharply, 
for he laid great stress on carrying out his sal- 

11 


12 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


vage operations in a legitimate way and by mod- 
ern methods. 

“ But ye’d grab everything ye could, when she 
did strike ! ” 

“ That’s different.” 

The old man spat, and significantly washed 
out his mouth with his grog. 

“ Different! It’s wrecking, isn’t it? Only 
ye haven’t got the nerve to do it right ! An’ the 
boy, there, he’s worse!” the “Admiral” added, 
pointing with the stem of his pipe at his grand- 
son, Latimer, who was listening, leaning for- 
ward with his elbows on the table. “ He thinks 
wrecking’s a nursemaid’s job!” 

The boy shifted uneasily in his chair. He 
had a most wholesome terror of his grandfather, 
though he all but worshipped him. 

“ The old buccaneer blood hasn’t weakened 
much in you, Father,” rejoined Captain Voley, 
with a smile. “Nor the pirate blood, either. 1 
believe you’d run up the Jolly Roger to-morrow, 
if you thought there was half a chance! ” 

“ Piracy at sea ain’t no worse’n piracy 
ashore,” came the growling retort. “ Takin’ 
folks’ money for low-grade goods ain’t no bet- 
ter’n buccaneerin’, an’, as for this ‘ high finance ’ 


CRABS OF THE SURF 13 

ye read about in the papers, that’s nothin’ but 
piratin’ under false colors with a skipper too 
yaller to put up a real he-fight.” 

This was a sore subject between the two, for 
Captain Jerry Voley was a strong believer in 
modern commerce and up-to-date invention. 
He even had a small wireless outfit on his wreck- 
ing tug, the Moray. He understood his busi- 
ness, too. When it came to talking, the old man 
always scored, but he could not deny that 
whenever his son went out in his little wrecking 
tug, it was seldom that he failed to bring back 
to the coral-built house on North Biminis Island 
a considerable amount of loot. 

The “ Admiral,” unquestioned autocrat of all 
the wreckers from Great Bahama to Turks 
Island, was now nearly ninety years of age, and 
went to sea but seldom. On occasions, he could 
not be kept at home, and then he assumed abso- 
lute control. He was a Czar of the seas, in 
every sense of the world, and every wrecker on 
the Bahamas, negro or white, jumped smartly 
when the old man roared a command. 

He was a master-wrecker, born and bred. 
The blood of pirates ran in his veins, and “ ’Ris- 
tocrat Voley ” was a name of fear in West In- 


14 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


dian seas at the end of the eighteenth century. 
“ Or Admiral Voley ” was his grandson. 
When but a boy, in the “ plundering fifties,” he 
had been an active despoiler of ships in dis- 
tress, and it was against him and his like that all 
the maritime countries of the world arose in 
grim determination to sweep the “ wreckers of 
the Bahamas ” from the sea. They only par- 
tially succeeded. In point of fact, the biters got 
bit, for one light cruiser and one gunboat got 
hung up on the reefs, the latter in a fretwork of 
jagged rocks known as “ The Pirates’ Snare.” 
Right or wrong, “ Admiral ” Voley had the 
credit of having decoyed the gunboat there. 

In the days of the Civil War, “ Admiral ” 
Voley had been one of the most daring of the 
blockade-runners. In the Giraffe , afterwards 
renamed the Robert E. Lee , he successfully ran 
the blockade twenty-six times in succession. 
Towards the end of the war, he was in command 
of the blockade-runner Chameleon } and, the 
only time he was caught, he handled the situa- 
tion with such consummate cleverness that the 
Yankee officer who had captured him, had to let 
him go . 

Those were prosperous days, and the “ Ad- 


CRABS OF THE SURF 


15 


miral ” had grown rich. In this he was no great 
exception, for, at that time, the town of Nassau 
was glutted with gold. To him were always 
given the most dangerous and the most lucra- 
tive tasks, for he was a superb sailorman and 
knew every reef and shoal of those treacherous 
coasts with a suspiciously exact knowledge. 
Moreover, he had a keen legal brain and a cer- 
tain rough oratory which made him a powerful 
force in the islands. 

Time after time he had bearded the Govern- 
ors sent by the British Crown to try to bring 
order amid the semi-piratic population, and he 
would not have scrupled to bellow his opinions 
in the teeth of the most select assembly in the 
world. As for arguing — one might as well ar- 
gue with a thunderbolt! 

Twenty times and more, efforts to pass laws 
to prevent deliberate and collusive wrecking 
were overthrown in the Colonial Assembly by 
this hurricane-voiced skipper and his free-boot- 
ing following. It might be added that many of 
the legislators shared his opinions, and were 
secretly glad to have this rough-tongued old 
sea-dog fight their battles for them. 

As recently as 1870, over three-quarters of a 


16 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


million dollars’ worth of plunder was brought 
into the port of Nassau in one year, and no one 
was such a fool as to suppose that the wrecks 
from which this plunder had been taken had all 
struck the reefs by accident. Moreover, since, 
in that year, there were but sixty-two small 
vessels engaged in the work of wrecking and as 
the actual value of the salvaged goods was as- 
sessed by the Admiralty Courts at $767,695, it 
followed that each vessel averaged a haul of 
$12,382 for a single season. It is easy to see 
where the “ Admiral ” found supporters. 

In view of the fact that, at this time, agri- 
culture had not flourished on the Bahamas, and 
that the sponge-fishing industry had hardly be- 
gun, it was not surprising that Bahamans should 
prefer the mad lottery of wrecking to drudgery 
on land which would bring them but little profit. 
In those old days, all the colonists hung to- 
gether. 

A venerable man was the “ Admiral,” and he 
would never admit that wrecking ought to have 
changed. He held fast to the old rule that the 
first wreck-master aboard a wrecked ship was 
the only one who had a right to dictate how that 
wreck should be handled, and the only one to 


CRABS OF THE SURF 


17 


negotiate with the captain of the ship. In three 
famous cases, at least, those of the Stephen F. 
Austin , the Karnak , and the Hartley, “ Ad- 
miral ” Voley fought this question of wreckers’ 
rights before the Vice- Admiralty courts, and 
forced the courts to yield. 

In consequence, every suspicious wreck which 
occurred around the Bahamas was blamed on 
the “ Admiral,” and, often enough, not without 
reason. Such was the case now. A vessel was 
reported ashore off “ The Little Isaacs ” and 
Captain Voley was sure that his father had a 
hand in it. 

“ Gettin’ up steam on the Moray? ” the old 
wrecker shot out. 

“ Should have a full head by now,” was the 
reply. “ Coming along this time, Father? ” 

“Ay! Leave you alone, an’ you’d offer to 
tow her off for nothin’, like as not! ” 

The old man heaved the huge ruin of his bulk 
to his feet with the aid of the table. 

“Can I come, Grap?” pleaded Latimer, us- 
ing the island diminutive for “ Grandpap.” 

“Ay, ye can come, if ye keep yer new- 
fangled notions in yer head an’ don’t talk too 
much,” was the grudging reply. 


18 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


In two bounds Latimer had reached the cup- 
board, pulled out oilskins and sou’wester, and 
was on his way after the two men, who had al- 
ready started for the beach. 

“ So she’s struck on ‘ The Little Isaacs,’ eh? ” 
Latimer heard the “ Admiral ” say. 

“ Struck hard, I hear.” 

“ H’m, that’s where the Black Pearl went 
down in sixty-eight. Jules brought ye word, 
eh? ” 

Captain Voley wheeled on his father. 

“ How in the name of the Big Green Turtle 
did you know that it was Jules who found her? ” 

The old sinner chuckled. 

“ Ye’ll notice, Son,” he answered, “that Jules 
ain’t ever hard up for money to buy a bottle or 
two.” 

“ It’s easy enough to find wrecks of your own 
making,” declared the son, darkly. 

But the old sea-dog rolled along, singing 
huskily: 

**Give me a wreck in a reef -filled sea, 

With rum as a royal potion ; 

Gold in the hold and the rocks a-lee, 

And a-plenty of graves in the ocean.” 

This was a blood-curdling song of some fifty 


CRABS OF THE SURF 


19 


or more verses, of which the old wrecker used to 
deliver himself whenever he was feeling particu- 
larly gay. Aside from hymns — to which he was 
partial, though he was apt to mix the words up 
somewhat — this was the only song the “ Ad- 
miral ” knew. 

Latimer disliked the song, in itself, yet he was 
always glad to hear it, for he knew it meant that 
his grandfather was in the humor to tell stories 
of the olden days, which occurred but rarely. 

As soon as they were aboard the Moray , — as 
Captain Voley’s ocean-going tug was called, — 
Latimer, hearing his grandfather still humming 
the tune of “ Give me a wreck, etc.,” sidled up 
to him, and asked: 

“Were you the wreck-master on the Black 
Pearl Grap?” 

“ Ay, Lat,” answered the old sea-dog, and 
chuckled. 

“ What was so funny about it, Grap? ” 

“Funny!” The “Admiral’s” expression 
changed. “ There wasn’t fun enough to tie a 
knot on! But for a scrap, ’twas as pretty a little 
tussle as ever I had with the Florida beach- 
combers. An’ then hide-an’-go-seek with a gun- 
boat to top off with! ” 


20 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 
And he burst forth with: 

‘ 4 Many a good ship comes to grief 

When there ’s hardly a cat's-paw blowing, 
And lands hard and fast on a coral reef, 

With only the wreckers knowing. ’ 9 

Latimer interrupted him with: 

“ But about the Black Pearl , Grap? ” 

“ Ay, the Black Pearl ” returned the old 
wrecker reminiscently. “ She was a barquen- 
tine, a rig ye don’t see much nowadays. Bound 
from New York to Havana, she was, with a 
general cargo, all sorts o’ stuff, from a hank o’ 
lace to a piano. Worth money, Lat! She ran 
on ‘ The Little Isaacs.’ ” 

The old wrecker cocked a wicked eye at his 
grandson. 

“ Queer sort o’ place for a ship to strike, ye’ll 
say when ye see it. Any good skipper oughter 
be able to keep off? Maybe. But there was a 
norther breezin’ up good, an’ the Black Pearl 
didn’t answer to her helm none too quick. 
Leastwise, that’s what they said.” 

He turned on Captain Voley, who had 
strolled up to hear the yarn. 

“ I s’pose, Son Jerry,” he snapped, “ ye’d be 
blamin’ me for the norther, too.” 


CRABS OF THE SURF 


21 


“ I’d hate to put you in charge of all the winds 
of the world, Father/’ was the good-humored 
answer. “ Lloyds would report even more 
‘ Ships Missing ’ than it does now.” 

The “ Admiral ” grunted disapproval, and 
went on with his story: 

“ There was ten schooners of us started out 
that night, an’ when we got to 4 The Little 
Isaacs ’ the swell was kickin’ in, rollin’ over the 
outer reef with a nasty lop an’ chuckin’ the 
spray to leeward fifty fathom an’ more. Ye’ve 
never played ’round ‘ The Little Isaacs/ have 
ye, Son? ” 

“ I’ve never had a wreck there, Father, no. 
This one will be the first.” 

“ It’d be yer last, too, if I wasn’t aboard,” 
warned the old wrecker. “ I’ll take the Moray 
in for ye.” 

“ I’ve got your chart, Father,” was the con- 
fident answer. “ You’ve marked all the reefs 
and shoals on that.” 

“ I have, have I?” The “Admiral” leered 
shrewdly. “ Maybe there’s some I haven’t 
charted, Son Jerry! It don’t do to tell all ye 
know. I say, I’ll take the Moray in.” 

“ Suits me,” the captain of the steamer an- 


22 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


swered, and he was entirely sincere. “ I’d let 
you take the Moray over ‘ The Pirates’ Snare ’ 
if you said you could make it.” 

Obviously flattered at this tribute to his sea- 
manship, the old sea-dog resumed: 

“ We kept well to wind’ard o’ the Black 
Pearl !, for there wasn’t no manner o’ use in 
gettin’ too close to trouble, an’ she’d run in right 
close to the ‘ Devil’s Kegs ’ that lie off to the 
east’ard.” 

Captain Voley started. 

“ I don’t know those rocks. They’re not 
charted ! ” he cried. 

“They’re there!” retorted the “Admiral,” 
dryly, and continued, “ The surf was breakin’ 
over the ‘ Devil’s Kegs ’ fit to smother the Black 
Pearl , an’ the water all around was soapy green. 
It’s a nasty place in there, no lee anywhere to 
run into, an’ the way that norther was cornin’ 
down, the best anchor wouldn’t hold. 

“ Some o’ the Black Fleet (wrecking vessels 
owned and handled by Bahama negroes) 
wouldn’t stay with it, an’ ran for ‘ Belaying Pin 
Key ’ to get anchorage until the sea went down. 
Me, I wasn’t lookin’ for no anchorage. I was 
after that cargo, an’ wasn’t going to lose any 



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Courtesy of Cassell and Co. 

The Sea Breeds Heroes. 

No finer tales are told than those of sailormen who risk their vessels and 
their lives to save their fellows in distress, though a storm be raging. 


CRABS OF THE SURF 


23 

chances o’ havin’ the Key West beach-combers 
cornin’ up. 

“ I was a bit younger in those days an’ it 
took more’n water to scare me. So me, and 
eleven others — I always paid my own crew dou- 
ble wages — got in a boat an’ shot between the 
‘ Devil’s Kegs,’ knowin’, o’ course, that if the 
boat didn’t smash the first time she struck, she 
would the second.” 

“ And then you had to swim for it, 
Grap? ” 

“ Swim, Lat? Much good it’d be trying to 
swim on ‘ The Little Isaacs ’ ! Even you’d get 
smashed, half-fish though ye think yerself. No, 
lad, if any of us got safe through the ‘ Devil’s 
Kegs/ we’d have to crawl on the jagged coral, 
with the waves poundin’ like all creation, an’ if 
any one lost hand-hold, good-bye! 

“ Goin’ like a clipper yacht, I steered the boat 
clear into the teeth o’ the rocks. Smash! A 
dozen holes were driven in her, but wind an’ 
surf were behind an’ she lifted an’ struck twice 
afore goin’ into splinters too small for firewood. 
Then it was claw an’ hang on, crawlin’ slow an’ 
holdin’ sideway to the surf, for if ever one o’ 
them waves caught a man fair in the back, his 


24 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


backbone’ d snap like the stem of a pipe. Nine 
of us got aboard.” 

“And the other three, Grap?” 

“ Gone to Davy Jones’ locker,” was the curt 
reply. “ Nine got aboard, one with a broken 
arm, one with a broken leg. I fixed the last one 
up, best I could. You know him, Lat, it’s old 
Copper-Face Phil, Jules’ father.” 

“ So that’s why he’s lame! I’ve often won- 
dered how he got his bad leg.” 

“ That’s why. I’ve pensioned him, these fifty 
years an’ more. Maybe that’s why Jules does 
’most anything I want. 

“ Well, there was nine of us aboard, two out 
o’ commission. Bright an’ early next mornin’, 
along comes the Key West beach-combers, four- 
teen schooners of ’em and ‘ Red-Cap Morgan ’ 
in command. They’d over two hundred men 
aboard, an’ two hundred against seven is a bit 
too much odds. I slipped below an’ rousted out 
some duds belongin’ to the skipper o’ the Black 
Pearl , an’ some o’ the mate’s duds for one o’ my 
men, for that scramble over the coral hadn’t left 
us much more’n our hides. Then I leaned over 
the rail, easy-like, an’ waited for ‘ Red-Cap ’ to 
come up. 


CRABS OF THE SURF 25 

“ I kept that skipper’s cap pulled down over 
my face, an’ he didn’t know me, o’ course. 

“ ‘ Hey, Cap’n,’ he shouted, ‘ we’re cornin’ 
aboard! ’ 

“ ‘ When you’re asked,’ says I, ‘ an’ not 
afore.’ 

“ ‘ We’ll get her off or salvage her for you, 
for a third o’ the cargo,’ he sings out. 

“ ‘ Ye’re blind in both eyes,’ says I. 6 What 
do ye think she is — a derelict? We’ll snake her 
out ourselves, soon as the sea goes down.’ 

“ He gave me the laugh at this, as he had 
right, seein’ the Black Pearl was stuck on 4 The 
Little Isaacs ’ like a piece o’ toast on a toastin’ 
fork. 

“‘Wait till the Black Fleet comes up!’ he 
yelled. ‘ Those pirates will take everything 
you’ve got an’ knife you into the bargain.’ 

“We howled at each other till we were both 
hoarse, but he never suspected that we were 
from the Bahamas ourselves. If he had, the 
only folk who’d ha’ known what happened to us 
would ha’ been the sharks. 

“ Then, Tillin’ up from ‘ Belayin’ Pin Key,’ 
came the rest o’ the boys, mine an’ some o’ the 
Black Fleet. 


26 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ That was a bit too much for ‘ Red-Cap.’ 
His men started to get out one o’ his boats, so’s 
he could get aboard afore any o’ our men. That 
wouldn’t do. If he didn’t get drowned on the 
‘ Devil’s Kegs ’ he’d land aboard an’ I’d have 
to kill him, or he’d kill me. There wouldn’t be 
any other way out. 

“ So I pulls off my skipper’s cap, an’ sings 
out: 

“ ‘ Easy off, Red-Cap, there,’ says I, ‘ this is 
Admiral Voley, wreck-master in charge o’ this 
barquentine.’ 

“ His language in answer was hot enough to 
scorch the rocks. But he was ready for a fight, 
was ‘ Red-Cap,’ an’ he swung his schooner an’ 
headed her for the reef. I saw his trick. He 
reckoned on smashin’ his own schooner to bits, 
but bringin’ her alongside. Then he’d pitch me 
overboard, an’ be in his rights to keep the Black 
Fleet off. 

“ One of my men saw the scheme, too, an’ he 
steered for the reef, figurin’ he’d be in time for 
some o’ the fightin’. Holy Whale! Ye never 
saw such a smash as when those two schooners 
hit the reef at the same minute an’, out o’ the 
smother, both bunches came scramblin’ aboard. 


CRABS OF THE SURF 27 

There was a half a dozen broken heads afore I 
could separate ’em.” 

“ I’m surprised at you separating them, 
Father,” put in Captain Voley, sarcastically. 

“ They’d fourteen schooners to my ten, an’ 
half the men I had were Blacks,” the “Admiral” 
replied. “ Besides, I keep out o’ trouble when 
I can. If we’d ha’ killed any o’ the Key West- 
ers, there’d ha’ been a fine howl. 

“ Meantime, out to sea, there’d been a hogs- 
head o’ trouble. She was blowin’ half a gale, 
good, an’ sea enough. Manoeuvrin’ around, the 
bowsprit of a Key Wester raked the main- 
sail of a Black schooner an’ brought it down by 
the run, tanglin’ the Key Wester in the wreck- 
age. 

“ The Blacks didn’t stand idle. They 
swarmed along that bowsprit an’ went for the 
Key Westers with knives. The beach-combers 
fought ’em back with pump handles. All hands 
aboard the Black Pearl stood by an’ watched. It 
was a hand-to-hand tussle in a smashin’ sea, both 
schooners grappled an’ drivin’ in towards the 
reefs. But they broke apart after a while, an’ 
then I turned to ‘ Red-Cap.’ 

“ ‘ Look-a-here, Red-Cap,’ says I, ‘ ye’ve got 


28 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


more men than I have, an’ if it comes to an up- 
and-down fight all round, ye’ll win.’ 

“ ‘ An’ toss the last livin’ one o’ ye overboard 
when we’ve done,’ says he savagely. 

“ ‘ That’s as may be,’ says I. ‘ But before ye 
can salvage this cargo, I can have forty schoon- 
ers here in two hours an’ ye can’t get any here 
under fifteen hours. An’ some 1 one else’d be 
goin’ overboard, then.’ 

“ ‘ Like enough,’ says he, ‘ but we’ll have 
plenty o’ company.’ 

“ ‘ Which means a lot o’ good men killed an’ 
neither one gets the cargo,’ says I. ‘ We’ll 
salve this together. I’ve got first rights as 
wreck-master but I’ll waive ’em since we’re out- 
numbered. You pick your men,’ says I, ‘ an’ 
I’ll pick mine. I’ll have a red-paint line drawn 
down the middle o’ the deck, here, from how to 
stern. You take fifty o’ your men, I’ll take 
fifty o’ mine. Bring ’em aboard. We’ll open 
all the hatches. Everything your men pull out 
o’ the hold, they put on the port side, everything 
our men get we’ll put to starboard. The quick- 
est workers get the most.’ 

“ ‘ That’s fair,’ says ‘ Red-Cap.’ 

“ When we opened the hatches an’ the Key 


CRABS OF THE SURF 


29 


Westers saw what the cargo was, they went 
wild. For a minute, I thought ‘ Red-Cap ’ was 
goin’ back on his word an’ would fight. But I 
hadn’t let ’em open the hatches until there was 
just as many o’ my men aboard as his, an’ he 
knew, as I said, that if he started any dirty 
work, I could get word to Nassau long before 
he could to Key West. 

“ That was one wild unloadin’ ! Both sides 
worked like they was mad. But I’d picked 
mainly Blacks for my work, an’ they can stand 
a hot sun better’n the Florida whites, who’re a 
poor-fed crowd, anyway. We got the pickin’s, 
and ‘ Red-Cap ’ got madder’n a ship’s cook 
when the sea puts his galley fire out. I didn’t 
let him out o’ my sight, though. 

“ There was trouble enough, as it was. If 
one o’ the fellows on our side o’ the line, or on 
the other, saw something he fancied, he’d wait 
his chance to roll it over, when the other fellow 
wasn’t lookin’. ‘ Red-Cap’s ’ men were worse’n 
ours, for mine knew me. 

“ The sea was beginnin’ to go down, now, so’s 
we could load a bit, an’ those bales an’ cases were 
just a-flyin’! We hadn’t got more’n about two- 
thirds aboard when up comes a British gun- 


30 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


boat. We scattered an’ ran. We’d a good 
haul, anyway. Me, I ran for ‘ Belayin’ Pin 
Key,’ transferred all the loot to another 
schooner, an’ scudded back. When I got to 
‘ The Little Isaacs,’ the gunboat had already 
sent a gig. I got out a boat, dropped back to 
the wreck, and climbed up the side. 

“ ‘ First wreck-master aboard ! ’ says I. 

“ The naval officer looked at me, with never 
a smile, though he must ha’ been grinnin’ on the 
inside. 

“‘Oh!’ says he. ‘Got your papers, Cap- 
tain? ’ 

“ I showed ’em. 

“ ‘ Curious,’ says he, ‘ I could have sworn that 
I saw your schooner leave the wreck less than an 
hour ago.’ 

“ ‘ Must ha’ been some o’ the Florida beach- 
combers, sir,’ says I, ‘ looks like they’ve been 
lootin’ her.’ 

“ ‘ Some one has, that’s sure,’ says he. 
‘ We’ll have to make an inquiry into the matter. 
But I presume that I must accept your state- 
ment that you are the first wreck-master 
aboard.’ 

“ ‘ There’s no one will dispute it,’ says I. 


CRABS OF THE SURF 


31 


“No one ever did, either. ‘ Red-Cap ’ 
couldn’t, without admitting to the loot. As for 
the inquiry, the court ruled that the wreck had 
been plundered by ‘ persons unknown ’ and 
that, otherwise, the usual proportion of cargo 
salvage belonged to me.” 

“ But the crew, Father? ” queried Captain 
Voley. “ Where were the captain and crew? 
They weren’t all drowned, surely!” 

“ Not a one o’ them,” answered the old 
wrecker, cheerfully. 

“ Then what happened to them? ” 

“ Soon after the Black Pearl struck,” the 
“ Admiral ” explained, smoothly, “ a fishing 
boat happened along and took off the crew. 
Bein’ Americans, the craft ran ’em up to Nor- 
folk, Virginia, so’s they could get back to their 
homes, easy.” 

“To Norfolk! Why so far? Why not to 
Key West? ” 

The old wrecker winked portentously at the 
questioner. 

“ Son Jerry,” he said, “ ye ask too many ques- 
tions. But, if ye want to know, they seemed to 
have a touch o’ fever, poor fellows, an’ were 
talkin’ about * Twisted Palm Light ’ havin’ 


32 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

moved. I thought they might need medical at- 
tention.’ ’ 

He grinned broadly. 

“ Decoy lights, by Jove! ” exclaimed Captain 
Voley. 

But the “ Admiral ” only chuckled and 
turned away, humming: 

“ Plenty o’ lights wink white an’ red, 

Tellin’ o’ hidden dangers, 

Change ’em, an’ wreckers see loot ahead, 

Fishes feed on the strangers.” 

With which he again winked portentously, this 
time at Latimer, and bit another chew from his 
plug of tobacco. 


CHAPTER II 


MASTER OF THE STORM 

It was late in the afternoon when the Moray , 
with a full head of steam in her boilers, but un- 
der half-speed, picked her way through the in- 
tricate reefs towards “ The Little Isaacs,” reck- 
oned among the worst of the many series of reefs 
which stud the whole length of the Bahama 
Islands. 

The Bahamas form a chain of fifteen small 
islands and over a hundred islets, with not less 
than a thousand keys or cays, sand-banks, reefs 
and shoals, in all over five hundred miles long, 
running southeasterly from opposite the Ever- 
glades of Florida to Haiti. They form a most 
dangerous series of obstructions to navigation 
through the Windward Stairs and the Wind- 
ward Passage, the best outlets from the Gulf of 
Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean. 

The formation of the region increases its dan- 
gers. The coral reefs grow in height, and new 

coral atolls form continually. The sand-banks 
33 


34 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


shift. The shoals shallow without notice. Be- 
ing in the earthquake zone, several rocky islets 
have been heaved up suddenly in the fairway. 
The tide-rips are violent and erratic. The Ba- 
hamas, too, are in the track of West Indian hur- 
ricanes, which average five or six a season. 
Dangerous as are these waters to a small ship, 
they are a ghastly menace to any large vessel. 

With the opening of the Panama Canal, 
which diverts ever more and more traffic towards 
the Gulf of Mexico, the menace of the Bahamas 
increases. Even the most complete system of 
lights and buoys cannot protect a vessel caught 
in a hurricane in such terribly treacherous wa- 
ters. A certain proportion of wrecks is inevi- 
table, and the wrecker or salver becomes a factor 
of the highest value and importance to shipping. 

Where large steamers are concerned, wreck- 
ing has utterly changed. All such vessels carry 
wireless apparatus, and, when stranded, send a 
radiogram to the nearest big port. Great 
wrecking companies, with a fleet of tugs and 
equipment costing up to a half a million dollars, 
will endeavor to save the vessel as well as the 
cargo. Such work is far beyond the powers of 
the wrecking schooners of the Black Fleet, and 


MASTER OF THE STORM 35 

even of the small wrecking tugs, such as the 
Moray . 

There are many vessels on the sea, however, 
which are not large steamers equipped with 
wireless. These range all the way from a small 
American coasting schooner to a full-rigged 
ship sailing under the Norwegian flag because 
she is so unseaworthy that the British Board of 
Trade will no longer pass her. There may be, 
also, those homeless vagabonds of the sea, 
“ tramp ” steamers, mere shells of rusty iron 
with limping engines, on the hulls of which 
Davy Jones knocks continually. Of such craft 
the reefs of the Bahamas still reap a harvest, 
and in the salving of them much of the old 
wrecking system still prevails. 

Wrecking schooners then, as now, cruised as 
consorts, each vessel seeking a wreck independ- 
ently. Sometimes, if the wreck were small or 
the cargo not of any great value, one or two 
schooners could do all the salvage work. The 
profits, however, were divided among the consort 
vessels, even if they had not been there. 

In the case of a derelict, which is a vessel 
abandoned by her captain and officers, the first 
wreck-master (holding a Master’s certificate and 


36 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


registry as a Master- Wrecker in Nassau) 
aboard the craft had the right to decide all mat- 
ters dealing with the operations of salvage. 

In the case of a vessel on the reefs and “ in 
distress,” a wreck-master was empowered to 
make what terms he could with the captain, and, 
after such agreement was made, the wreck- 
master took charge. A captain was not compelled 
to deal with the first wreck-master who arrived, 
but could bargain with others, if he pleased. 
Many ugly sea-fights arose over this. 

A vessel stranded on a reef, but which its cap- 
tain declared not to be in distress, could not be 
regarded as a case for salvage. Several cases 
occurred, however, in which a wreck-master, 
knowing the conditions of the reefs better than a 
ship-captain, took charge of a wrecked vessel in 
spite of the captain’s protests, and saved crew 
and cargo. The Vice- Admiralty Court, in most 
cases, supported the wreck-masters in this. 

The responsibilities of the wreck-master were 
great. His first duty was to save the crew; his 
second, to save the vessel, if possible; his third, 
to salve as much of the cargo as could be done. 
Often — indeed, generally — this work had to be 
done in a howling gale and a maddened sea, 


MASTER OF THE STORM 37 


within a few fathoms of the hungry coral fangs 
from which a bigger and more powerful craft 
had not been able to escape. It meant hours — 
even days — of work within a hand’s-breadth of 
death by drowning or being mangled on the 
rocks. If any lives were lost, after the wreck- 
master took charge, he must answer for it at the 
official inquiry, and, in almost every case, repre- 
sentatives of the ship’s owners protested because 
more of the cargo had not been salved, no matter 
what the condition of reef and sea. A wreck- 
master, therefore, had to protect himself before 
the courts as skilfully as before the rage of the 
tempest. 

All salved goods were delivered at Nassau and 
there either sold by auction or held at the owner’s 
disposition after an estimated value had been 
put on them by the Vice-Admiralty Court. 
There was much injustice here. As all the 
Bahamans were in league with the wreckers, 
foreign owners of vessels were entirely at the 
mercy of the islanders. 

A worse feature of the old days was “ collu- 
sive wrecking.” Under this evil system, the 
captain of a vessel with a valuable cargo would 
make an arrangement with a certain wrecker, 


38 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


before he sailed, that, on such and such a day, he 
would run his vessel on a pre-determined reef. 
As the wrecker did not have to lose time search- 
ing for this wreck, as it would occur on a reef 
near deep water where the handling of the cargo 
was easy, and as he was sure of having the first 
claim, the wrecker could afford to share his gains 
with the dishonest captain. Within a space of 
three years, forty-seven cases were proved in the 
courts to have been of this swindling character. 
Of course, in all such cases proved, both the 
wreck-masters and the captains lost their certif- 
icates. 

“ OF Admiral Voley’s ” conceptions of right 
and wrong in wrecking were peculiar to his time. 
He regarded “ collusive wrecking ” as unfair to 
the owners, since he seemed to regard his busi- 
ness as a tussle of wits between ship-captain 
and wrecker. Yet he would erect false lights to 
lead ships astray, move buoys from their moor- 
ings, give false information, and bribe pilots and 
helmsmen to run a ship ashore. 

“ If a skipper ain’t watchin’ his course in these 
waters,” was his explanation, one time, “ he de- 
serves to have his ship ashore! ” 

Yet, once a vessel had struck, the “Admiral ” 


MASTER OF THE STORM 


39 


would spare neither himself nor his men to save 
life, ship, or cargo, or all three. If the wreck 
were a derelict, he would allow no petty stealing. 
If the master of the ship was aboard, why, he 
deemed it the latter's business to keep an eye on 
his cargo. He was, in short, “ a fine old wrecker 
of the old-time days.” 

Captain Jerry Voley, his son, owner of the 
Moray y held to modern ways. His wrecking 
tug, though small, was powerfully engined. He 
had pulled many a vessel off a reef and, using 
wreck-mats, had towed her to a port or beached 
her, vessels which his father would have unloaded 
and abandoned. He scorned the unlawful prac- 
tices of false lights or shifted buoys, but, when 
it came to a bargain, he was a harder man to deal 
with, even, than the “Admiral.” He lacked the 
adventurous fire of the older man. He would 
not risk the Moray too close to danger, even to 
save life, and he would only salvage such cargo 
as could be reached in comparative safety. 

Latimer, again, had ideas far more modern 
than those of his father, and, in his heart of 
hearts, he regarded his grandfather as little other 
than a pirate, though he admired the piratic 
strain, too. A couple of years before, a large 


40 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


steamer had sunk in shallow water, not far from 
North Biminis, and a big New York wrecking 
company had come down with a fleet of tugs, 
pumping vessels, pontoons and modern equip- 
ment, and in nine days’ work had raised the huge 
craft and floated her off to dry dock. 

This had fired Latimer’s ambition. He was 
eager to become, not a wrecker like his grand- 
father, not even a salver, like his father, but a 
real modern wrecking and salvage engineer. 
Hence his grandfather’s taunt about being a 
“ nursemaid ” to ships. 

The Moray , now, was coming close to “ The 
Little Isaacs ” and the “ Admiral ” went to the 
chart-house to take the wheel himself. His eyes 
were dim for near sight, so that he could read 
but with difficulty, but for long distances he 
could see better than a younger man. 

As they rounded a key with a few straggling 
palms on it, the wrecked ship could be seen. 
She was a barque and had struck heavily, her 
foremast and maintopmast having gone by the 
board. Her bows were stove in and she lay 
bow-on with a heavy list to starboard, pounding 
heavily on the jagged reef. 

“ Total wreck, eh? ” was the “ Admiral’s ” 


MASTER OF THE STORM 41 

comment, as he squinted at her with a practised 
eye. 

“All depends on the cargo,” put in Captain 
Jerry. “ I might pull her off if she had fruit or 
timber aboard.” 

The old wrecker spat out of the chart-house 
window in derision, but made no reply. He was 
steadying down to an intense concentration of 
the water. 

“ Stand by both bow anchors. Eight fathom. 
Put two men at each, Son Jerry,” he warned. 

The captain bawled the orders and went back 
to the chart, looking anxious, for his father was 
taking the Moray right on the very edge of where 
reefs were marked although apparently deep 
water lay to starboard. Once he made as though 
to speak, but checked himself. 

Slight as the movement was, the “ Admiral ” 
saw it, and smiled grimly. 

“ Smooth water to starboard, Son Jerry? ” 

“ Ay, Father.” 

“ Watch sharp, as we slide by.” 

He threw the wheel over sharply, and the 
Moray , built for such work, turned as on a 
pivot. 

- “Now!” came the warning. 


42 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


Captain Jerry and Latimer leaned over the 
starboard rail, and there, rising sheer from the 
dark water, was a sharp-fanged reef, with three 
or four knobs on it, just like barrels. It had an 
eerie look, for, owing to some trick of current, 
the water whirled around it almost without 
spray. 

“ ‘ The Devil’s Kegs ’ ! ” cried Latimer. 

“Ay!” 

There was a pause of a few seconds, then: 

“Half speed astern! Ready with the an- 
chors ! ” 

The telegraph indicator to the engine-room 
rang sharply. 

“ Let go! ” roared the “Admiral.” 

The chains rattled in the hawse-holes. 

“ I hope they find holding-ground, Dad,” said 
Latimer, anxiously, looking at the hungry 
“ Little Isaacs ” not thirty fathoms away, and 
the wrecked barque pounding on them, a cable’s 
length astern. 

“ The old man wouldn’t have dropped an- 
chors unless he knew just where they were go- 
ing,” said the Captain, reassuringly. “ You 
don’t need to worry, Lat, any time he’s aboard. 
He’s dead right, too, I’d have run slap into the 


MASTER OF THE STORM 43 


* Devil’s Kegs ’ if I’d come in here myself. It’s 
just like him, not to have marked them on the 
chart ! ” 

By this time the “Admiral ” had returned 
from the bow, where he had gone to make sure 
that the anchors were holding. 

“Ye can get yer boat out, Son Jerry,” he 
said, “ an’ make yer bargain with yon skipper.” 

“ Don’t you want to come along and take 
charge, Father? ” 

The old wrecker shook his head. 

“ I’m quartermaster this trip,” he grinned. 
“ I jest didn’t want to see ye spike the Moray 
on the ‘Devil’s Kegs.’ Go ahead! The skip- 
per seems to be gettin’ excited.” He squinted 
up at the sky. “ He’s got reason, too. There’s 
dirty weather cornin’. Look lively, Son Jerry, 
this is a bad place to get out of, if she begins to 
breeze up ! ” 

The boat was over the side and the Captain 
and Latimer aboard in about a hundred seconds. 
Six Blacks — probably the six finest oarsmen in 
the islands, for it was reason for boasting to be 
one of a Voley crew — bent to their reinforced 
ash oars. A couple of minutes’ pulling brought 
them abreast of the wreck. 


44 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Stand by!” 

A pause. 

“ Starboard all!” 

The rowlocks creaked under the strain as the 
men on one side backed water and, on the other, 
pulled. The little boat spun round like a tee- 
totum, her nose a foot from the black and weath- 
ered coral. She missed by a few inches the tan- 
gled mass of spars and rigging which was bang- 
ing madly on the reef-edge, and shot out to sea 
with a deep scratch along her gunwale where a 
jagged spur had almost caught her. 

But, in that second when her stern was to the 
reef, both Latimer and the Captain had leaped 
for the wreckage. Spars and rigging were 
heaving in a smother of foam and a misstep 
meant death, but neither father nor son was 
afraid of reef or surf, and a quick scramble 
brought them both on the barque’s deck. 

The crew, which was huddled in the waist of 
the ship, rushed aft as the wrecker clambered 
aboard, shouting gutturally. The mate, lean 
and powerful, with a belaying pin in his hand, 
stood at the weather poop ladder and the men 
came no farther. 

Heaving and crashing, her tortured timbers 


MASTER OF THE STORM 45 


groaning, the ship lurched heavily, proving to 
Captain Voley’s experienced senses that there 
was buoyancy in her still. The spray drove as 
high as the lower cross-trees and the roar of the 
surf was deafening. The situation would have 
been terrifying to any other boy, but Latimer 
had accompanied his father constantly, ever 
since the latter had bought the Moray , and 
wrecks, even the most dangerous, were to him 
little more than a matter of business. 

“Afternoon, Captain !” shouted the wreck- 
master, at the top of his lungs. “ You picked a 
bad place to strike!” 

The skipper of the barque, a heavy gross-fea- 
tured man, with black eyebrows making almost 
a straight black line across his forehead, 
scowled. 

“ What do ye call this place? ” he shouted 
back. 

“ 4 The Little Isaacs ’ ! ” 

“ Reckon it’s the end o’ the Ocean Fay , 
then!” the skipper rejoined, for the reefs were 
notorious. 

“ What have you got aboard?” 

“Fruit, sugar, bark, and hat-straw, bound 
from Maracaibo to Baltimore.” 


46 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


The wreck-master thought for a moment, 
scanning the lie of the ship. 

“Might be worse!” he shouted back. “I’ll 
do my best to tow you off and beach you on a lee 
shore for two thousand pounds.” 

The skipper of the barque made a gesture of 
indignant denial. 

“ Ten thousand dollars, ye pirate! ” he yelled. 
“ That’s robbery!” 

“ Get her off yourself, then,” retorted Cap- 
tain Voley, turning on his heel. 

He waved for the boat to come in. 

At that instant, the crew of the barque made 
a rush up the poop steps. The left fist of the 
mate shot out like the kick of a mule, and, almost 
at the same instant, he brought the belaying pin 
across the neck of a second man. Both fell. 

“Bad business, that, Captain!” said the 
wreck-master sternly. “ This ship’s * in dis- 
tress.’ ” 

The black-browed man stepped forward, 
truculently, a revolver in his hand. 

“ I’m still captain of this ship ! ” he roared. 
“ I didn’t ask ye to come on board an’ ye can get 
back among the sharks, where ye belong!” 

“ I’m going,” answered the wreck-master. 


MASTER OF THE STORM 47 


“ But when you signal for me to come on board 
again, it’ll cost you three and maybe four thou- 
sand pounds. There’s a norther breezing up. 
And so I’ve warned you! Come, Latimer.” 

They climbed down the ship’s side, but just 
before reaching the wreckage, Captain Voley 
looked up once more. 

“ Two thousand pounds? Take it or leave it.” 
“ No!” 

The boat shot in. 

The wreck-master poised on a heaving spar 
and leaped, landing fair in the boat. 

Latimer’s foot slipped, as he was leaping, and 
he fell short. He was a master swimmer and 
dived through a comber, coming up beside the 
boat. His father grabbed him by the collar and 
dragged him in. 

“ Clumsy work!” was his only comment. 

Nothing more was said until they got aboard 
the Moray , when Captain Voley told the whole 
story to the “ Admiral,” the latter making 
growling comments all the way. 

“ If it was goin’ to be fair weather,” said the 
old wrecker at last, “ I’d let ’em stay there till 
they was sick an’ scared, an’ ready to crawl on 
their knees to be taken off. But the glass has 


48 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


been high an’ jumpy all mornin’, Son J erry, an’ 
she’s dropping slow an’ steady now. There 
won’t be anybody aboard yon craft, to-morrow 
mornin’ ; they’ll all ha’ gone to Kingdom 
Come.” 

“ I told them there was a norther coming,” 
the captain of the Moray answered. 

“ Can ye pull her off, do ye think? ” 

“ Sure of it,” said the younger man. “ Cut 
away the wreckage, lighten her by getting main 
and mizzenmasts off her, blast off a couple of 
small spurs of coral which are holding her stern, 
and she’ll come. That is, if I can get water 
enough under the Moray for a straight pull.” 

“ Go ahead an’ do it, then.” 

Captain Voley hesitated. 

“ He backed up his ‘ No! ’ with a gun! ” the 
younger man objected. 

The “Admiral” moved forward one shoulder 
as a man gathers his muscles for a blow. 

“ Scared ye, eh? ” 

“Well,” the other responded, “I didn’t see 
any use in getting shot.” 

“ I’d like to see him point a gun at me! ” 

The old “Admiral ” considered for a moment 
longer and then roared out: 


MASTER OF THE STORM 49 


“Alive there, ye black lubbers! Get out that 
boat! I’m goin’ aboard.” 

“ But, Father ” 

“ Ye’re goin’ to say I’m ninety an’ can’t get 
aboard her, eh? Lat, come along!” Then, to 
the men, “Are ye ready there? ” 

“All ready, Admiral!” 

Tottering, yet active, the old wrecker got into 
the boat. Latimer followed. 

At the wreck, the boatmen pursued the same 
tactics, but timed the work more carefully, giv- 
ing a better chance to get foothold on the wreck- 
age of floating spars. It was hard work for a 
man ninety years of age, but experience and 
skill made up for lack of strength. A few deft 
springs, and the old wrecker was on the deck of 
the barque. 

“Where’s this bucko mate!” he roared. 

His quick eye fell on the lanky figure, still 
standing by the poop rail. A few steps along 
the heaving deck brought him face to face with 
the man, at whom he glared with such ferocity 
and such authority that the bruiser gave back a 
step. 

Then, with a snort of contempt, the old man’s 
gripe descended on the belaying pin. With a 


50 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


quick twist, he jerked the pin from the mate’s 
hand and sent it spinning into the sea. 

“A fine bucko mate ye are!” he sneered. 
“ I’ve half a notion to put ye across my knee! ” 

Deliberately he turned his back on the man, 
while the jeers of the crew rose high. 

Then he walked up to the skipper, a man of 
more than his size and half his age, and shook his 
fist in the other’s face. 

“ I’m Voley! ” he boomed, his voice sonorous 
above the roar of the surf. “ ‘ Admiral ’ Voley, 
ye understand! An’ I’m wreck-master here, 
an’ in full charge o’ this craft. An’ get that 
through yer thick skull as quick as the Lord’ll 
let ye!” 

The other broke in: 

“As long as I’m captain of this ship ” 

The old wrecker’s answering bellow fairly 
stunned the skipper out of speech. 

“ Captain, ye call yerself ! An’ ye run a ship 
in fair weather on a reef a baby could see! Cap- 
tain! An’ when a wreck-master comes aboard 
ye, with yer vessel in distress, ye tell him to get 
off yer worm-eaten wind-jammer an’ refuse to 
let him save the lives o’ yer men ! ” 

He wagged a menacing finger in front of the 


MASTER OF THE STORM 51 


black-browed skipper, who strove in vain to get 
a word in edgewise. 

“ Ye’ll do well if I don’t have ye hauled up in 
Nassau an’ have yer Master’s certificate taken 
from ye for gross incompetence an’ neglect o’ 
duty. Ay ! An’ manslaughter, if a man aboard 
o’ ye gets lost ! ” 

Again the skipper strove to speak and again 
the old “Admiral ” roared him down. 

“Me! Ye ink-marked putty imitation of a 
sailorman! Ye’d dare talk back to me! Get 
an’ hide yerself in the chain-locker, lest I should 
be tempted to say something! ” 

The skipper blustered, but before that wither- 
ing fury of invective, he could say nothing. Nor 
was there anything that he could do. 

He knew “ Admiral ” Y oley by name, as 
every one in those seas knew him, and he was 
well aware that, if the old wrecker ever went on 
the stand in court and swore that the captain of 
the Ocean Fay had caused loss of life aboard his 
craft because of a salvage price, the skipper 
would be broken from his command. The old 
wrecker’s threat was not an idle one. 

“ I’ll take your offer of ten thousand dollars, 
then,” the skipper conceded, weakly. 


52 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ My offer, ye two-for-a-penny-huckster! I’ve 
made ye no offer! Ye refused a good offer an’ 
ye’ll stick by that refusal! I’ll take ye off the 
reef when I like, an’ how I like, an’ for how much 
I like, an’ ye’ll pay!” 

He whirled on the crew. 

“ Men!” he roared. “ Wreck-Master in com- 
mand! Get out the axes an’ clear away the 
wreckage. An’ you, ye empty-gutted bean- 
pole,” he snarled, turning to the mate, “ get to 
work with the men an’ show ye’re some good, 
anyhow ! ” 

For one split second the mate hesitated. He 
was not a coward, but it was not in him to strike 
at a man ninety years of age. Moreover, since 
the skipper of the Ocean Fay had been forced to 
yield up the right of command, defiance of the 
wreck-master’s orders would come near to being 
mutiny. He did not need to ask himself if the 
“Admiral ” would press the charge. Under 
that fierce eye, there was nothing to do but 
obey. He quailed and went forward with the 
men. 

It was characteristic of the negro boatmen of 
the Moray that they had not waited for further 
orders from the “Admiral.” They were confi- 


MASTER OF THE STORM 53 


dent that, once on board the wreck, he would 
take charge. While this brief interchange was 
proceeding on the heaving deck of the Ocean 
Fay , the boat had pulled back to the Moray and 
was already returning with Captain Voley on 
board. He, also, had taken it for granted that 
the old wrecker would arrange matters. 

“See what he wants, Lat!” said the “Ad- 
miral,” as his eye caught a glimpse of the com- 
ing boat. 

Latimer ran to the stern and looked over. 
Captain Voley held up two bulky bundles. 

“ He’s got the explosives, Grap,” the boy an- 
swered, at the same time waving his hand to his 
father to show that he understood. 

“ Look lively an’ lay them, then. We’ve got 
to get off this reef afore dark.” He sniffed the 
air. “ Wind’s cornin’, an’ cornin’ fast.” 

He hurried forward to urge the crew to 
quicker work, though the men were working like 
furies. 

“ Get yerself a life-line, Lat! ” he warned. 

The boy nodded, cut off the loose coil of the 
gaff topsail halliards, made fast one end, and, 
passing the other under his arms, made a snug 
bowline, a knot which would hold but could not 


54 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


tighten on him. By the time this was done, the 
old wrecker was back. 

“Over ye go!” he ordered. “They’ve got 
hedges out, an’ are waitin’. I’ll pay out the 
line.” 

As the “ Admiral ” said, two small hedge an- 
chors had been dropped from the boat with a 
line to each and a man to each line. At Captain 
Voley’s word, they slackened the lines, inch by 
inch, bringing the boat to the very edge of the 
reef. Latimer, beaten and half -drowned by 
the surf, waited on the reef, impatient for the 
time to do his duty. 

The captain of the Moray handed the boy 
four charges of explosive, which the lad jammed 
under the two spurs of coral which were holding 
the stern of the ship. He wedged them so that 
they could not move. The four heavily insu- 
lated wires were roughly knotted together, and 
thrown back to the boat. One of the boatmen 
attached these to a small buoy and fastened the 
buoy to the line of one of the kedge anchors, 
casting this off from the boat. Thus the wires 
were held moderately taut, but kept from chaf- 
ing against the reef, which might easily rub 
through the insulation. 


MASTER OF THE STORM 55 

At a sign from his father, Latimer climbed on 
board. 

Meanwhile, the old “Admiral ” had been busy. 
The wreckage dangling over the side had been 
cut away. The mainmast had been cut more 
than half through and half the shrouds severed. 
Two men were already at work cutting through 
the mizzenmast. 

The instant that Captain Voley got on 
board the Moray , he, too, leapt into instant ac- 
tion. 

Three piercing whistles from the tug an- 
nounced that he was ready to up-anchor. 

Already sharp puffs of wind were coming 
down from the north, and the sky was getting 
murky. There was no time to lose. 

Full steam had been kept on the tug and the 
exhaust was hissing violently. 

Under Captain Voley ’s admirable handling 
and the work of a thrice-picked crew, both an- 
chors lifted simultaneously, and under full 
speed astern, the Moray edged her way round 
the “ Devil’s Kegs,” and into clear water, di- 
rectly opposite the wreck. 

Out from the tug shot the boat again, the cox- 
swain, a burly negro, in charge. In the boat 


56 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


were coil upon coil of two thin but strong hemp 
lines. Picking up the rope of the kedge, for 
greater surety, and paying out back to the reef, 
the coxswain heaved the line clear on board the 
Ocean Fay. Latimer caught it, and started to 
haul in. 

“Aft here, four o’ ye!” bellowed the “Ad- 
miral.” 

The men ran. 

“ Haul, ye snails ! Haul like there was a keg 
o’ rum at t’other end! Haul! ” 

The crew, realizing that they were working 
for their lives, and realizing that the old wrecker 
was a sailorman from truck to keelson, hauled 
with a will, led the line to the capstan, thrust the 
bars in and started round at a fast clip. The 
small hemp line had been made fast to a heavy 
cable-laid line, four inches in diameter. It would 
be heavy hauling, but the incoming surf carried 
the cable towards them, and the pawls of the 
capstan clinked merrily. The end of the cable 
came aboard. 

While the cable was being hauled in. the boat- 
swain had heaved a second line, which Latimer 
also caught, and, with two of the men to aid him, 
he hauled aboard the ropes which were spliced 


MASTER OF THE STORM 57 

into the cringles at each corner of the wreck- 
mats. These were made of four-ply tarred can- 
vas, specially prepared. 

A whistle from the Moray announced that all 
was ready aboard the tug. 

The “Admiral ” held both arms above his 
head, without moving, as much as to say, 

“ Wait!” 

Then, turning to the crew, orders hurtled 
forth from him like cannon-shot, but each one 
clear and definite. While some of the men 
hacked at the mizzenmast, others cut free the 
bowsprit and jib-boom, which fell with a crash 
on the reef. Four others stood by the ropes of 
the wreck-mats, which lay under the vessel. 
Two made fast the towing cable to the stump of 
the mizzenmast. 

The tug’s boat, meanwhile, having heaved the 
two lines aboard, had picked up the ends of in- 
sulated cable and snapped them into a water- 
tight junction, connected with wires leading to a 
battery on the tug. 

The “Admiral ” stepped back to the stern and 
waved his arms violently to denote: 

“All ready!” 

The tug responded with two whistles. 


i 


58 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ Stand by to cut all, next time she whistles! 99 
the wreck-master bellowed. 

The men stood with axes poised. 

The tug gave a long shrill whistle. It was 
followed almost immediately by a dull, rending 
explosion which tore away the spurs of coral and 
released the stern. 

The eight axes fell as though wielded by one 
man. The mizzenmast lurched and pitched 
overboard. 

A column of water rose under the barque. 
The stern, lightened by the loss of the mizzen- 
mast, rose high. 

The cable tautened. 

The Moray , under full steam, with her power- 
ful engines and double screws, tugged on the 
wreck, which, for that second, was half afloat. 
With a fearful cracking, as her copper sheath- 
ing ripped away and her planking splintered, 
and with a jerk which threw nearly every man 
aboard her off his feet, the Ocean Fay grated 
over the reef-edge and plunged stern-foremost 
into the sea. 

The sailors scrambled to their feet, rushed to 
the lines holding the corners of the wreck-mats, 
and, as the bows of the vessel passed over them, 


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Courtesy of Merritt & Chapman Wrecking Co. 

The Four-masted Ship Peter Rickmers as she Appeared after Striking. 



Courtesy of Merritt & Chapman Wrecking Co. 

Appearance of Ship One Week Later after a Hard Gale. 
Where the Element of Time is Essential. 


MASTER OF THE STORM 59 


hauled taut. Once in place, the outward pres- 
sure of the water held them fast. 

The patches of tarred canvas, while more than 
a hundred square feet in size, did not cover all 
the hole nor keep the ship from leaking — she 
had been too badly mauled for that — but they 
helped. Moreover, as Captain Voley had 
judged, the buoyancy of the light wooden crates 
in which the fruit was packed, and of the bark 
and hat-straw, more than compensated for the 
soggy weight of the bags of sugar. 

The first plunge was a moment of tension, for 
no one could say how the Ocean Fay would 
float. She sank like a lump, then slowly righted 
and rose, lying a little more than awash. Thus 
she drew far more water than any ship has a 
right to draw in those narrow and often shallow 
channels. The captain of the Moray , however, 
was quite at home, the moment he had got clear 
of the “ Devil's Kegs.” 

There was no lingering, for, despite the fran- 
tic speed with which everything had been done, 
evening was creeping on, the darkness coming 
early since the sky was clouding fast. The 
puffs of the “ norther ” were becoming squally, 
raising a choppy sea, which would have snapped 


60 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


the cable or torn the towing posts out of the 
Moray if the tug-boat captain had not put out 
so long a tow-line. 

The “Admiral” himself stood at the stern, 
directing the two men at the wheel, for though 
the Ocean Fay was being towed stern-first, the 
rudder must be kept amidships or put over to 
port or starboard to try and keep the founder- 
ing vessel from sluing too heavily. 

The squalls of the “ norther ” now came more 
often and more violently, and “ Belaying Pin 
Key ” was still three miles away. 

Using every ounce of pressure, the Moray 
could barely tow the water-logged craft at three 
miles an hour. She was sinking lower and lower 
as the water soaked more and more through the 
cargo. 

Even the old wrecker grew anxious. If the 
Ocean Fay sank in deep water, there would he 
even less chance of salvage than if she had 
stayed on the reef. Still, the “Admiral ” had 
confidence in his son’s judgment. 

The Moray puffed ahead gallantly, and the 
Ocean Fay followed soddenly. 

If the^eable should break! 

It held. 


MASTER OF THE STORM 61 


Slowly the long outline of “ Belaying Pin 
Key ” loomed up, and, half an hour later, they 
were in the lee of it, and free from the squalls. 
Twenty minutes further towing in the deepen- 
ing dusk brought them to a little bay. 

The Moray dropped back, her steam winch 
gathering in the slack of the cable, and, with the 
tow-line shortened to a few fathoms, she steamed 
straight for the shore. Drawing but a few feet 
of water herself, she ran far in toward the beach, 
until, with a slip and a lurch, the deep-floating 
Ocean Fay grounded on soft bottom. 

The old “Admiral ” threw both arms aloft, as 
a signal, and, at the instant, the indicator of the 
Moray rang to “ Stop ! ” 

A wrecker’s domination and a salver’s skill 
had saved vessel, cargo, and crew. 


CHAPTER III 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 

Next morning, the “ norther ” was shrieking 
overhead, but the Ocean Fay lay aground and 
well protected in the little bay in the lee of “ Be- 
laying Pin Key.” The Moray had steamed 
back to Nassau, to gather some of the schooners 
of the Black Fleet for the salving of the cargo, 
and also to send a cablegram to the owners. 

The “Admiral,” as wreck-master in charge, 
had stayed aboard the beached vessel and had 
bidden Latimer stay also. He did not trust 
either the skipper or the mate of the Ocean Fay, 
for, though he had salvaged the skipper’s vessel 
and saved the lives of the mate and crew, the two 
officers of the ship bore him black enmity for the 
rough treatment of the day before. 

Accordingly, the old “Admiral,” despite his 
ninety years of age, would not go down into the 
cabin. He had some of the crew rig him up a 
62 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 


63 


small awning on the deck, and appropriating 
most of the cabin bedding for his own use, lay 
down to sleep. Latimer took the first four-hour 
watch, to see that no one came near. At mid- 
night he waked his grandfather, who took the 
next four-hour watch, after which Latimer re- 
sumed guard. 

Soon after six bells in the morning, one of the 
sailors, who had shown himself especially alert 
the day before, came up to where Latimer was 
keeping watch, and, jerking a thumb in the di- 
rection of the sleeping man, asked mysteriously: 

“ Is this here the real ‘Admiral ’ Voley o’ 
Biminis? ” 

“ Of course,” answered Latimer. “ Didn’t 
you hear him say so? Why? ” 

“ I was a-wonderinY’ said the sailor, “ if he 
was game to help a poor chap find an old wreck 
with treasure in it that was sunk south o’ here, 
nigh a hundred years ago. 

“ I heard, onc’t, when I was in Key West, that 
the gang o’ pirates which captured the Ameri- 
can schooner Exertion , out o’ Boston, had 
stowed their loot in an old hulk, which was an- 
chored in a mangrove lagoon. But they hadn’t 
sense enough to see if the old hulk was copper- 


64 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


sheathed, an’ the worms got after her, so she 
sank in about four fathom o’ water. The pirates 
didn’t dare get outside divers, who might split 
on ’em, an’ they couldn’t any of ’em dive their- 
selves, so there the hulk an’ the treasure lies 
still.” 

The “Admiral,” a light sleeper, had been 
awakened by the murmur of voices and had been 
listening. He now turned on one elbow and 
faced the sailor. 

“ Do ye know where she lies? ” he asked. 

“ No, ‘Admiral,’ sir, I don’t. But onc’t I got 
hold of a bit o’ printin’ which tells the story o’ 
Cap’n Lincoln, who was captured by them pi- 
rates, an’ it describes the reefs so’s any one what 
knows West Indies waters could find her easy 
enough. 

“ I’ve been reckoning, sir, for some time, on 
cornin’ here to the Bahamas, an’ findin’ some 
wrecker who’d know the reefs. Twenty years 
I’ve been lookin’ for a chance to get the Baha- 
mas, an’ here I get thrown up against the best 
wrecker of ’em all. It’s Providence, that’s what 
it is!” 

The old man fixed him with a penetrating 
glance. 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 


65 


“ Were ye at the wheel o’ the Ocean Fay 
when she struck? ” 

The sailor looked confused. 

“ Well, sir, not to be a-deceivin’ of you, I 
was.” 

“ So!” The “Admiral” hesitated for a mo- 
ment, then continued. “ I see, now. Ye prob- 
ably had a sudden fit o’ forgettin’ the course ye 
were told to steer.” 

He held up his hand authoritatively, to stop 
the sailor’s reply. 

“ Mind ye now,” he warned, “ I don’t want to 
know anything about it! I don’t even want to 
know if ye ever met at Key West a Biminis man 
named Jules. If ye did, forget it!” 

The sailor nodded comprehension. 

“ Have ye got it in for the skipper ? 99 queried 
the old wrecker. 

“ He an’ his blue-nose (Nova Scotian) mate 
are officers a self-respectin’ A. B. (Able Sea- 
man) wouldn’t want to sail under,” was the vir- 
tuous reply. 

“ Ye hail from Key West yerself ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ There’s more’n one o’ ye mixed up in this, 
I’m thinkin’?” 


66 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Two more, sir.” 

“ Do they know about this treasure? ” 

“ No, sir, they just wanted to get even with 
the skipper an’ the mate.” 

“ Very good. Ye know enough to keep yer 
tongue between your teeth? ” 

“ Yes, sir. I don’t talk.” 

Latimer looked from one to the other, begin- 
ning to grasp the plot. From the start, he had 
felt that there was something strange about the 
wreck of the Ocean Fay . He recalled his fa- 
ther’s pointed remark about Jules, that it was 
“ easy enough to find wrecks of one’s own mak- 
ing.” 

“ Let’s see this printed paper ye’re talkin’ 
about,” said the “Admiral.” 

The sailor felt in his pocket and brought out 
a small wad of oil-skin. This he unfolded and 
handed to the old wrecker. It contained a num- 
ber of pages torn from an old book, in the small 
pages and fine print of fifty years ago, now be- 
come blurred and indistinct from long carrying 
and frequent handling. 

“ Lat,” said the old man, handing him the 
papers, “ yer eyes are younger’n mine. Read 
it aloud.” 


67 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 

Carefully Latimer unfolded the pages and 
ran his eye over them. 

“ It seems to be an account taken from a daily 
log, Grap,” he explained, “ and is written by 
Captain Lincoln of the schooner Exertion . She 
was bound from Boston to Trinidad, with a 
cargo of provisions.” 

He turned over the first page. 

“ There isn’t much to begin with, just notes of 
the voyage. There’s a big black mark here, 
though.” 

“ I made that,” put in the sailor. “ The story 
o’ the pirates begins there.” 

“ Read from there, Lat,” said the old wrecker. 

“ All right, Grap,” the boy answered, and he 
began to read : 1 

“ Nothing remarkable occurred during the 
passage, except much bad weather, until my 
capture, which was as follows: 

“ On Monday, December 17, 1821, we were 
making good headway with fine breezes from the 
eastward. At daybreak, saw some of the islands 

1 This is an authentic record of one of the last group of pirates 
which operated in the Spanish Main. Captain Lincoln’s story is 
very little known, and is of great value as one of the few ac- 
counts of capture by pirates in which a daily record of the 
incidents was kept. 


68 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


northwards of Cape Cruz, called Keys — stood 
along northwest; everything now seemed favor- 
able for a happy termination of our voyage. 

“At 8 o’clock, p. m., saw a sail coming round 
the Keys into a channel called Boca de Cavalone 
on the chart. She made directly for us, with all 
sail set, sweeps on both sides — the wind being 
light — and was soon near enough for us to dis- 
cover about forty men on her deck, armed with 
blunderbusses, cutlasses, long knives and dirks. 
She carried two carronades, one a twelve- 
pounder and the other a six-pounder. She was 
a schooner, showing the Patriot blue-white-and- 
blue flag of the Republic of Mexico. 

“ I thought it prudent not to try to resist 
them, should they be pirates, having a crew of 
but seven men and only five muskets, accord- 
ingly ordered the arms and ammunition to be 
stowed away in as secret a place as possible. 
Then I suffered her to speak us, hoping and 
believing that a republican flag indicated both 
honor and friendship from those who bore it. 
But how great was my astonishment when the 
schooner having approached very near us, hailed 
in English and ordered me to heave my boat out 
immediately and come on board with my papers. 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 69 

Accordingly my boat was hove out, but filled 
before I could get into her. 

“ I was then ordered to tack ship and lay by 
for the pirate’s boat to board me, which was done 
by Bolidar, their first lieutenant, with six or eight 
pirates, armed with as many of the above-men- 
tioned weapons as they could well sling about 
their bodies. 

“ They drove me into the boat and two of them 
rowed me to their privateer, as they called their 
vessel, where I shook hands with her commander, 
Captain Jonnia, a Spaniard. Before even look- 
ing at my papers, he ordered Bolidar, his lieu- 
tenant, to take charge of the Exertion and to 
follow the pirate schooner, the Mexican , in back 
of the Key they had left, which was done. 

“At 6 o’clock, p. m., the Exertion was an- 
chored in eleven feet of water, near their vessel, 
by an island which they called Twelve Leagues 
Key — called Key Largo on the chart — about 
thirty or thirty-five leagues from Trinidad. 

“After this strange conduct, my papers were 
examined by a Scotchman who went by the name 
of Nickols, their sailing master. He spoke good 
English, had a countenance rather pleasing, al- 
though his beard and mustache had a frightful 


70 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

appearance. He gave me back my papers, say- 
ing: 

“ ‘ Take good care of them, I am afraid you 
have fallen into bad hands.’ 

“ The pirate’s boat was then sent to the Exer- 
tion with more men. Part of these were left on 
board as a prize crew, the rest returned with 
three of my crew whom they treated with drink 
and offered equal shares if they would enlist with 
them, but could not prevail. 

“ I then requested permission to go again on 
board my vessel, which was granted. When I 
got on board I was invited below by Bolidar, 
where I found they had emptied the case of 
liquors and had drunk so much as to make them 
desperately abusive. I was permitted to lie 
down in my berth. 

“ Bolidar pretended friendship. But I found 
him, as I suspected, a consummate hypocrite. 
Indeed, his very looks indicated it. He was a 
stoutly built man, of a dark swarthy complex- 
ion, with keen ferocious eyes, huge whiskers, and 
beard under his chin and on his lips four or five 
inches long. His appearance was most truly ter- 
rific. He could talk some in English and had a 
most lion-like voice. 



Courtesy of J. B. Lippincott Co. 

The Corsair Boards the Papal Galley. 

Uruj the Great throws his oars overboard to force his men to fight the 
huge and well-armed ships. Algerian coast waters hold 
many treasure-ships as yet unrecovered. 



Courtesy of Technical World Magazine. 

Impaled on Jagged Reefs. 

Her bottom torn to pieces, wreckers will still find a fortune in the cargo 
and fittings of the wrecked barque. 


71 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 

“ The next day I was told their captain had a 
supposed commission from the Republic of 
Mexico authorizing him to seize all cargoes of 
provisions bound to any royalist port. I re- 
quested him to examine my papers thoroughly, 
and he would find that my cargo was all Ameri- 
can property taken on at Boston and consigned 
to an American in Trinidad. 

“ But the captain would not take this trouble. 
He ordered both vessels under way immediately 
and commenced beating up amongst the Keys 
most of the day, the wind being light. 

“ They now sent their boat aboard the Exer- 
tion and commenced plundering her. They in- 
quired for spirits, wine, liquor, etc., and were 
told that they had already taken all that there 
was on board. But, not satisfied, they pro- 
ceeded to search the cabins and forecastle, 
ripped up the floor of the latter, found some 
boxes of bottled cider and began drinking it 
with such freedom that a violent quarrel arose 
between officers and men, which came very near 
ending in bloodshed. 

“ Wednesday, 19th, commencd with moder- 
ate easterly winds. We went on beating to- 
wards the northeast, the pirate’s boats fre- 


72 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


quently going on board the Exertion for food, 
which was used with great waste and extrava- 
gance. They kept me aboard the Mexican and 
gave me food and drink, but of bad quality. 
The place assigned to me to eat was covered 
with dirt and vermin. ... We came to 
anchor near a Key called by them Brigantine 
Key, where myself and mate were permitted to 
go ashore, but guarded by pirates. 

“ I soon returned to the Mexican and my 
mate to the Exertion . In the course of the day I 
had considerable conversation with Nickols, who 
appeared well disposed towards me. He la- 
mented deeply his own situation. He told me 
4 those who had taken me were no better than 
pirates, and their end would be the halter, but,’ 
he added, showing me a bottle of laudanum 
which he had found in my medicine chest, 4 if we 
are taken, that shall cheat the hangman.’ 

44 He stated he was at New Orleans last sum- 
mer, and met one Captain Orgamer, a French- 
man, who had bought a small schooner and was 
going down to Mexico to get a privateering 
commission. Captain Orgamer made him lib- 
eral offers respecting shares, and promised him 
a sailing-master’s berth. . . . They under- 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 


73 


took the transport of troops, and the vessel, hav- 
ing got a commission, was renamed the Mexi- 
can. They took some small prizes off Cam- 
peachy, and, afterwards, many more on the 
south coast of Cuba. By this time the crew was 
increased to nearly forty. They sailed up 
Manganeel Bay, where lay an English brig hail- 
ing from Jamaica. 

“ They seized this vessel, and, under Jonnia, 
a leading spirit among the Spaniards in the 
crew, began to act as pirates, though Captain 
Orgamer and Nickols protested. They muti- 
nied openly, and, like so many ferocious blood- 
hounds, plundered the cabin stores, the captain’s 
chest, took a hogshead of rum, a twelve-pound 
carronade, ammunition, rigging and sails. One 
sailor who resisted was beaten almost to death. 
Then they ordered Captain Orgamer ashore, 
and made Jonnia, who had led them in the 
mutiny, their captain. Nickols, as sailing mas- 
ter, was detained by force. Such was Nickols’ 
story. 

“ On Thursday, 20th, we continued beating 
up, the wind being light. The pirate’s boats 
were sent to the Exertion for more stores. It is 
impossible to give an account of the manners of 


74 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


this crew, and, were it possible, it would not be 
expedient. In their appearance the pirates 
were terrific, all wearing black whiskers and 
long beards, the receptacles of dirt and vermin. 
They used continually the most profane lan- 
guage, had frequent quarrels. A few days be- 
fore I was taken they had a stabbing match, and 
one man being near dead, they put him ashore 
at a fisherman’s hut and left him there to perish. 
I saw the wound of another whose nose was split 
open. So great was their love of gambling that 
the Captain would play cards with the meanest 
man on board. 

“ Friday, 21st. After lying at anchor through 
the night in ten fathoms water, made sail and 
stood in to the eastward. By this time I was 
out of reckoning, having no quadrant, chart or 
books. . . • 

“ Saturday, 22nd. Both vessels under way 
standing to the eastward, they ran the Exertion 
aground on a bar, but, after throwing overboard 
her deck load, she was floated off. A pilot was 
sent to her, and she was run into a narrow creek 
between two keys, where they moored her head 
and stern, alongside the mangrove trees, sent 
down her yards and topmasts, and covered her 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 75 

mastheads and shrouds with bushes to prevent 
her being seen by vessels which might pass that 
way. ... I went aboard her and found 
her in a most filthy condition. . . . The 

swarms of mosquitoes and sand-flies made it im- 
possible to get any sleep or rest. 

“ Sunday, 23rd. Early this morning, a large 
number of the pirates came on board the Exer- 
tion, threw out the long boat, broke open the 
hatches and took out considerable of the cargo, 
in search of rum or gin. ... In the after- 
noon the boat returned with a pirogue, having 
on board the officers and seven men of a pirate 
vessel that had been chased ashore at Cape Cruz 
by a Spanish armed brig. 

“ Monday, 24th. The boat was manned and 
sent ashore to Principe, Cuba. The pirates had 
a man on board who was a partner of a mer- 
chant at that place, through whom cargoes are 
sold. Thus is this atrocious system of piracy 
carried on. 

“Tuesday, 25th. Christmas Day! Still on 
board the Exertion, weather very calm and 
warm. . . . The irritating conduct of the 

pirates at this time can scarcely be imagined. 
The rest of the week passed in the same manner. 


76 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Sunday, 30th. The beginning of more 
trouble! This day was never observed by the 
pirates. . . . When the day came, if they 
knew it, it was spent in gambling. . . . 

Early this morning, the merchant, as they called 
him, came with a large boat for the cargo. 

“ I was immediately ordered into the boat 
with my crew, not allowed any breakfast, and 
carried about three miles to a small island, out 
of sight of the Exertion , and left there by the 
side of a little pond of thick muddy water, which 
proved very brackish, with nothing to eat but a 
few biscuit. One of the boat’s men told us the 
merchant was afraid of being recognized, and, 
when he had gone, the boat would return for us, 
but we had good reason to expect that they 
would deceive us, and passed the day in the ut- 
most anxiety. 

“ At night, however, the boats came and took 
us again on board the Exertion , when we found 
that they had broken open our chests and taken 
all our clothes. . . . The little money I 

and my mate had, and some belonging to the 
owners, my mate had previously distributed 
about the cabin in three or four parcels. 

One parcel in a butter pot they did not discover. 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 77 

“ Monday, 31st. We complained to them, 
expressing the necessity of having clothes to 
cover us, but might as well have appealed to the 
winds, nay better, for the latter would not have 
upbraided us in return. 

“ Tuesday, January 1st, 1822. A sad New 
Year’s Day for us. Before breakfast, orders 
came for me to cut down the Exertion’s rail and 
bulwarks on one side, for the pirates to heave 
their vessel out by and clean her bottom. On 
my hesitating a little they observed with great 
anger: 

“ 4 Very well, Captain, suppose you no do it 
quick, we do it for you.’ 

44 Directly afterwards, another boat full of 
armed men came to the side, they jumped on 
deck with swords drawn and ordered all of us 
into her immediately. I stepped below, in hopes 
of getting something which would be of service 
to us, but the captain hallooed: 

44 4 Get in the boat directly, or I will fire on 
you ! 5 

44 Thus compelled to obey, we, with four 
Spanish prisoners, were carried to a small, low 
island or Key of sand, in the shape of a half- 
moon and partly covered with mangrove trees, 


78 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


which was about one mile from and in sight of 
my vessel. 

“ There they left us, nine of us, with a little 
bread, flour, fish, a little coffee and molasses, 
two or three kegs of brackish water, a pot unfit 
to cook in and an old sail for a covering. They 
then pushed off, saying: 

“‘We will come to see you in a day or two/ 

“ Selecting the best place, we spread the sail 
for an awning, but no place was free from sand- 
flies, mosquitoes, and the venomous snake, the 
santipee. Sometimes we found these crawling 
up the insides of our trousers, but fortunately 
no injury was received. 

“ This afternoon, the pirates hove their vessel 
out by the Exertion , and cleaned one side, using 
our paints, oil, etc., for the purpose. 

“ Wednesday, 2nd. The pirates hove out the 
Mexican and cleaned the other side. In the 
afternoon, their boat came and took two of the 
Spaniards to another island for water, and soon 
after returned with four kegs of poor unwhole- 
some water, and left us, saying that they should 
not bring us provisions again for some time, as 
they were going away with goods from the prize, 
to be gone two or three days. 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 


79 


“ About this time, one of my men began to be 
ill, his legs and body swelled considerably, but, 
having no medicine, I could not do much to re- 
lieve him. 

“ Thursday, 3rd. The pirates had dropped 
off from the Exertion , but kept their boats em- 
ployed in bringing the cargo from her. They 
then got under way with the pirogue in tow, 
heavily loaded, leaving a guard on board the 
Exertion . 

“ Friday, 4th. Commenced with light winds 
and a hot sun. ... At sunset a boat came 
and inquired if we wanted anything, but, in- 
stead of adding to our provisions, took away our 
molasses and pushed off. 

“ That night we found a leaking water cask 
and some pieces of plank on the beach, which we 
carefully laid up in the hopes of getting enough 
to make a raft. 

“ Saturday, 5th. Pirates again in sight com- 
ing from the eastward. They beat up alongside 
their prize and commenced loading. In the 
afternoon, Nickols came to us bringing with him 
two more prisoners, a Frenchman and a Scotch- 
man, whom they had taken in a small sail-boat, 
coming from Trinidad to Manganeel. One of 


80 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

these poor fellows was badly bruised, having 
just suffered a severe beating from Bolidar, 
with the broad side of a cutlass. The two 
Spaniards who were in the boat remained on 
board the pirate and afterwards joined the 
pirate crew. 

“ Sunday, 6th. The pirates were under way 
at sunrise, with a full load of the Exertions 
cargo, going to Principe again to sell the 
freight, which was done readily for cash. 

“ Monday, 7th. The pirates brought more 
water, but, being very brackish, it was unfit for 
use. They sailed again in the afternoon, with 
the pirogue in tow, both having a full load. 

“ Wednesday, 9th and Thursday, 10th. Calm 
and very warm. The swarms of mosquitoes and 
sand-flies were intolerable. 

“ Friday, 11th. The pirates held a vendue on 
board wherein was sold everything remaining on 
board belonging to us and our fellow-prisoners. 

“ Saturday, 12th. The pirates remained 
alongside the Exertion , took the paints, old 
brushes, and gave their vessel a new coat of 
paint. 

“ About sunset, the pirates went out of the 
harbor on a cruise. Here we had been staying 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 


81 


day after day and night after night — apprehen- 
sions for our safety were much increased. 
What was to become of us? 

“ Monday, 14th. They again hove in sight. 
While passing our solitary island, they laughed 
at our misery, which was now almost insupport- 
able. Soon after, Bolidar, with five men, well 
armed, came and demanded my watch. I pre- 
tended not to understand him, and he lifted his 
blunderbuss to fire. I was compelled to submit 
to this unlawful demand. He further said: 

“ ‘ After to-morrow you shall go to your ves- 
sel.’ 

“ Tuesday, 15th. Our Spanish fellow-pris- 
oners warned us that c after to-morrow ’ meant 
a to-morrow that would never come. But it did 
come — in what manner will soon be stated. 

“ Wednesday, 16th. One of their boats came 
to inquire if we had seen a boat pass by last 
night, for their small sloop-boat was gone and 
two men deserted. I told them ‘ No.’ On their 
return, they manned three of their boats and sent 
them in different directions to search, but, at 
night, came back without finding either boat or 
men. They now took our old sail, which hith- 
erto had somewhat sheltered us, to make, I sup- 


82 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


pose, some small sail for their vessel. This rei> 
dered our nights more uncomfortable than be- 
fore, for, in those islands, the night dews are 
very great. 

“ Thursday, 17th, was passed with great 
impatience. The Eocertioii having been un- 
moored and swung to her anchors, gave us some 
hopes of being restored to her, but we were dis- 
appointed. 

“ Friday, 18th. Commenced with brighter 
prospects of liberty; the pirates were employed 
with our schooner’s shrouds, stays, etc. Almost 
we made sure that we were to be freed. . . . 

At almost the same moment, the axe was applied 
with the greatest dexterity to both her masts, 
and I saw them fall over the side! Here fell my 
hopes. I looked at my condition, and then 
thought of home. 

“ Our Spanish fellow-prisoners were so dis- 
appointed and alarmed that they recommended 
hiding, if possible, among the mangrove bushes, 
believing, as they said, that we should now cer- 
tainly be put to death, or, what was worse, com- 
pelled to serve on board the Mexican as pirates. 

“ Little else, it is true, seemed left for us. At 
night we determined to adopt the plan of hid- 


CAPTURED BY PIRATES 88 

in g, although starvation stared us in the face. 
Yet we preferred that to instant death. The 
night was passed with sufficient anxiety. I took 
the first watch. 

“ Sunday, 19th. The pirates’ large boat came 
for us. It being daylight and supposing that 
they could see us, we determined to stand our 
ground and await the result. They ordered us 
all into the boat, but left everything else, and 
rowed towards the Exertion. 

“ I now had some hopes of visiting my vessel 
again, but the pirates made sail, ran down, took 
us in tow, and stood out of the harbor. Bolidar 
afterwards took me, my mate, and two of my 
men on board, and gave us some coffee. . . . 

The captain kept at a distance, and forbade 
Nickols speaking to me. 

“ I observed that my mate, Mr. Brackett, was 
dejected, and asked him in a low tone what he 
thought was to be our fate. He answered: 

“ ‘ I cannot tell, but it appears to me that the 
worst is to come.’ 

“ Soon after, we saw the captain and the of- 
ficers whispering for some time in a private con- 
ference. 

“ When the palaver was over, their boat was 


84 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


manned under command of Bolidar, and went to 
one of the Keys. On their return another con- 
ference took place. 

“ In the afternoon, though we knew not the 
doom which had been fixed for us, the captain 
was engaged with several of his men in gam- 
bling, in hopes to get back some of the five hun- 
dred dollars he had lost a few nights before. 
This made him unusually fractious. 

“ A little before sunset, he ordered us all into 
the large boat, with a supply of provisions and 
water, and to be put on shore. As I stepped 
into the boat, Nickols said: 

“ ‘ Never mind. I may see you again before 
I die!’ 

“ The small boat was well armed and manned, 
and both boats set off together for the island 
where they had agreed to leave us to perish.” 






Courtesy of Sid g wick and Jackson. 

The Most Famous Ocean Race in History. 

The Ariel and the Taeping . after a several months’ run from Calcutta 
to England, passing the Lizard light a cable’s length apart. 



Sails are not Gone from the Sea ' 

A modern American four-masted barque making for Sandy Hook, with 
the Mauretania coming up astern. 







Courtesy of Technical World Magazine. 

Rescued by a Fleet of Schooners. 

The steamer Firefly entering St. John’s Harbor in the arms of a score 

of fishing craft- 



Courtesy of Engineering Magazine. 

Quick Work in a Busy Channel. 

A wreck in the pathway of navigation must be raised or destroyed at 
once. The barque La Escosesa snatched out from the entrance 
of New York Harbor. 


CHAPTER IV 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 

“ The scene, to us,” Latimer read on, “ was 
a funeral scene. There were no arms in the 
prisoners’ boat, and, of course, all attempt to re- 
lease ourselves would have been throwing our 
lives away, as Bolidar was near us, well armed. 

“ We were rowed about two miles north- 
easterly from the pirate ship to a small low 
island, lonely and desolate. We arrived at sun- 
set. 

“ For the support of us eleven prisoners, they 
left only a ten-gallon keg of water, and perhaps 
a few quarts in another vessel, which was brack- 
ish, part of a barrel of flour, a small keg of lard, 
one ham and some salt fish, a small kettle and an 
old broken pot, and one small blanket which was 
thrown out as the boat pulled away. One of 
the prisoners happened to have a little coffee in 
his pocket. These provisions comprehended all 
our means of sustaining life, and for what 
length of time we knew not. We felt anxiety, 
85 


86 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


especially, over the need of water, and our sup- 
ply was comparatively nothing for eleven men. 
A man may live twice as long without food as 
without water. 

“ Look at us now, my friends, benighted on 
a little spot of sand in the midst of the ocean, 
far from the usual track of vessels, and with 
every appearance of a violent thunder tempest 
and a boisterous night! I assure you, we were 
very wretched. 

“ When the boats were moving from the 
shore, on recovering myself a little, I asked 
Bolidar: 

“ ‘ Are you going to leave us so? ’ 

“ He answered: 

“ ‘ No, only for two days, we go for water and 
wood, then come back, take you.’ 

“ I requested him to give us bread and other 
stores, for they had plenty in the boat, and at 
least a hundred barrels of flour on the Mexican, 
but he refused and they hurried off to the vessel. 
That was the last time I saw him. 

“ We then turned our attention upon finding 
the spot most convenient for our comfort, and 
soon discovered a little roof supported by stakes 
driven into the sand, probably erected by the 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 87 


turtle fishers, who visit these islands in June. It 
was thatched with the leaves of the cocoanut tree, 
a considerable part of which was blown off. 
After spreading the old sail over the roof, we 
proceeded to put our small stock of provisions 
under it. 

“ Soon after, a heavy shower of rain came on, 
which penetrated the canvas and made it nearly 
as uncomfortable inside as it was outside. We 
were not prepared to catch water, having noth- 
ing to put it in. 

“ Our next object was to get fire, and, after 
gathering some of the driest fuel to be found, 
with flint and steel we kindled a fire, which was 
never afterwards allowed to be extinguished. 
The night was very dark, but we found a piece 
of old tarred rope, which served us as a candle. 

“ On examining the ground under the roof, 
we found perhaps thousands of creeping insects, 
scorpions, lizards, crickets, and young snakes. 
After scraping them away as well as we could, 
we lay down, the most of us having nothing but 
the damp earth for our bed, but it being so wet, 
several of us were sick for some days. 

“ Sunday, 20th. As soon as daylight came on, 
we proceeded to take a view of our little island. 


88 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


We found it to measure about one acre, of 
coarse white sand. It was mostly two feet, and, 
in some places, three feet above the surface of 
the ocean. On the highest part were growing 
some small bushes and some mangroves, the dry 
part of which was our fuel. There was also the 
wild castor oil bean, and many prickly pear cac- 
tus bushes. 

“We were greatly disappointed in not find- 
ing the former, suitable food. As for the latter, 
it gave us only a few pears about the size of a 
small button pear. The outside has almost in- 
visible thorns, which, if they touch the fingers 
or the lips, remain there, causing a severe smart; 
the inside is a spongy substance, full of juice 
and seeds which are red and a little tartish. Had 
they been in abundance, we should not have suf- 
fered so much for water, but, alas! even this 
substitute was not for us, for there were less 
than a peck of the prickly pears, all told. 

“ On the northerly side of the island was a 
hollow, where the tide penetrated the sand, leav- 
ing stagnant water. 

“ According to the best calculation I could 
make, we were about thirty-five miles from any 
port of Cuba, one hundred from Trinidad, and 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 89 


forty from the usual track of American vessels 
or others which might pass that way. No vessel 
of any size can pass among these Keys. After 
taking this view of our condition, which was very 
gloomy, we began to suspect that we were left 
on this desolate island, by these merciless 
plunderers, to perish. 

“ Of this we were fully convinced, yet we 
could not help but look anxiously for the pirates’ 
boat to come, according to promises, with more 
water and provisions, but we looked in vain. 
We soon saw them get under way, with all sail 
set, and run directly away from us until out of 
sight, and we never saw them again. 

“ Before they were entirely out of sight, we 
raised the white blanket on a pole, waving it in 
the air in hopes that, at two miles’ distance, they 
would see it and be moved to pity. But pity in 
such monsters was not to be found. It was not 
to their interest to save us from the lingering 
death which we now saw before us. 

“ Our next care now was to try for water. We 
dug several holes in the sand, but what water 
trickled in was too salt for use. The tide prob- 
ably penetrates through the island. We now 
came on short allowance of water. Having no 


90 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


means of securing what we had under lock and 
key, some one in the night would slyly drink, 
and it was soon all gone. 

“ We baked some bread, by mixing flour in 
salt water and frying it in lard, allowing our- 
selves eight quite small pancakes to begin with. 
The ham was reserved for some important occa- 
sion, and the salt fish was no use to us, because 
of lack of fresh water. 

“ Monday, 21st. In the morning we walked 
around the beach in expectation of finding 
something useful. On our way, picked up a 
paddle about three feet long, similar to the In- 
dian canoe paddle, except the top which was like 
that of a shovel. . . .We likewise found 

some conchs and roasted them. They were a 
pretty good shell-fish, though rather tough. 1 


‘The author, when a boy of fourteen years, was wrecked on 
Nine Keys, off the coast of British Honduras, and was one of 
four survivors of a crew of eight. We lived for thirteen days on 
these same conchs (large shell-fish several inches across, the shells 
of which are used for decoration). We were not so fortunate 
as to have the means of making a fire, and were compelled to 
eat them raw and wriggling. We had no water, but there were 
a few cocoanut trees on the Key, the nuts being in a green state, 
and the liquid of the unripe nuts was the only drink we had dur- 
ing those thirteen days. We were rescued by the timely arrival 
of a small schooner which was carrying the monthly provisions 
to a lighthouse on a Key near by. — F. R.-W. 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 91 


“We discovered, at low water, a bar or spit 
of sand, extending northeasterly from us, about 
three miles distant, to a cluster of Keys, which 
were covered with mangrove trees. Mr. Brack- 
ett, the mate, and George, one of the crew, at- 
tempted to wade across, the water at that time 
of the tide being only up to their armpits, but 
they were pursued by a shark and returned with- 
out success. The tide, here, rises about four 
feet. 

“ Tuesday, 22nd. We found several pieces of 
the palmetto or cabbage tree, and some pieces of 
board, and put them together in the form of a 
raft. With this we endeavored to cross to the 
other Keys, but it proved ineffectual. . . . 

We were a little cheered when, in scraping the 
sand away under the awning, so as to clear it 
away from the thousands of crickets and bugs 
which infested it, we found a hatchet — probably 
left by the turtle-hunters — which was, to us, 
particularly serviceable. 

“ Wednesday, 23rd. Early this morning, one 
of our Spanish fellow-prisoners crossed over the 
bar, having taken with him a pole sharpened at 
one end 4 to kill sharks,’ but he saw none to trou- 
ble him. While he was gone, we tried the water 


92 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


in several places and found it very salt, but, not 
having any other, we drank it and found that it 
had a very distressing effect upon us. We now 
concluded to reduce our allowance of pancakes, 
being sensible that our little stock of provisions 
could last but a few days longer. We had not 
the faintest hope, however, that they would en- 
dure long enough to save our lives. 

“ Towards night the Spaniard returned, al- 
most famished for want of water and food. 
He reported that he had found some sugar-box 
shooks (quarter-inch boards) but he had found 
no water. He said he had great difficulty in 
making his way through the mangrove trees, the 
ground being very swampy, so that we should 
not better ourselves by going there, although the 
Key was larger than ours. 

“ Thursday, 24th. This morning, after tak- 
ing a little coffee made of the water which we 
thought seemed the least salt, and two or three 
of the little cakes, we felt somewhat refreshed, 
and concluded to make another visit to those 
Keys in hopes of finding something more which 
might make a raft for us to escape to some other 
Key where there might be water, and thus to 
avoid perishing by thirst. 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 93 


“Accordingly, seven of us set off, waded 
across the bar and searched all the Keys there- 
abouts. On one we found a number of sugar- 
box shooks, on another two lashing planks and 
some pieces of old spars, which were part of the 
deck-load of the Exertion that was thrown off 
when she grounded on the bar. 

“ The wind at this time was blowing so strong 
on shore as to prevent us rafting our stuff round 
to our island, we were obliged to haul it on the 
beach for the present. Then we dug for water 
in the highest place, but found it as salt as ever, 
and returned to our island. Hunger and thirst 
began to prey on us terribly. 

“ Friday, 25th. Again passed over those 
Keys to windward, in order to raft our stuff to 
the island, it being most convenient for building. 
But the surf on the beach was so rough that we 
were again compelled to postpone the work. 
Returning, we found, on our way, an old top 
timber of a vessel with some spikes in it. 

“ In the hollow of an old stump we found two 
large lizards, one male, the other female. Only 
one was caught. After taking off the skin, we 
judged it to weigh a pound and a half. With 
some flour and lard — the only things we had ex- 


94 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


cept salt water — it made us a fine mess. We 
thought it a rare dish, though a small one for 
eleven half-starved persons. 

“ At the same time, a small vessel hove in 
sight. We made a signal to her with the blanket 
tied to a pole. Should they be pirates they could 
do no more than kill us, and perhaps would give 
us the water for which we began to suffer most 
excessively. Notwithstanding all our efforts, 
she took no notice of us. 

“ Saturday, 26th. Moderate weather and 
smooth sea. At low tide we found some cockles. 
We boiled and ate them, but they were very 
painful to the stomach. David Warren, one 
of the crew, had a fit of strangling, but re- 
covered. 

“ Most of us then set off to the windward 
Keys, where the planks and shooks were put to- 
gether to form a raft, which, with pieces of 
board, we paddled over to our island. There we 
consulted whether to build a raft large enough 
to hold us all, or a boat for some to seek rescue. 
Finding that the shooks had three or four nails in 
each, and having found a piece of large reed, 
like bamboo, of which to make pins, we con- 
cluded to build a boat. 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 95 


“ Sunday, 27th. Commenced our labor. 
. . . We took the two planks, which were 

about fourteen feet long and two and a half 
wide, and fixed them together for the bottom of 
the boat. Then we cut knees from the man- 
grove trees or bushes, which spread so much as 
to make the boat four feet wide at the top, spac- 
ing them exactly the distance apart of a Havana 
sugar-box. Her stern was square and the bow 
tapered to a peak. 

“ Monday, 28th. Went on with the work as 
fast as possible. Some of the Spaniards had 
long knives, which proved very useful in fitting 
timbers, and a gimlet, which I had slipped into 
my pocket when on board the pirate, enabled us 
to use the wooden pins. 

“ Now our spirits began to revive, but water, 
water was continually on our minds. We now 
feared lest the pirates should come, find out our 
plan and put us to death, although, before that 
time, we had wished to see them, being so much 
in want of water. The labor was extremely bur- 
densome. We cooked some cakes, but found it 
necessary to reduce the quantity again, however 
small before. Searching in vain on the wind- 
ward Keys for more wood we found some herbs 


96 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


which the Spaniards called Spanish tea. This 
when boiled, was found palatable, though the 
water was very salt. 

“ In the evening, when we were sitting around 
the fire to keep off mosquitoes, I observed David 
Warren’s eyes to shine like glass. The mate 
said to him: 

“ ‘ David, I think you will die before morn- 
ing. You are struck with death, now.’ 

“ I thought so, too. ... In the course 
of the night he had another spell of strangling, 
and soon after expired without much pain and 
without a groan. 

“ Tuesday, 29th. Part of us recommenced 
labor on the boat, while myself and Mr. Brack- 
ett selected a clear spot of sand on the northern 
side of the island, where we dug Warren’s 
grave. . . . Whose turn would come next, 

we knew not. At about ten o’clock we conveyed 
the corpse to the grave followed by us survivors 
— a scene whose awful solemnity can never be 
painted. . . . The middle part of the day 

being very warm, our mouths parched with 
thirst and our spirits depressed, we made but lit- 
tle progress during the remainder of the day. 
In the evening we were employed in picking 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 97 

oakum out of the bolt rope taken from the old 
sail. 

“ Wednesday, 30th. Returned to labor on 
the boat with as much vigor as our weak and 
debilitated state would allow. . . . How- 

ever, before night, we began to caulk her seams, 
by means of pieces of hard mangrove. 

“ Thursday, 81st. Went on with the work, 
some at caulking, some with battening the seams 
with strips of canvas and pieces of shook nailed 
over, to keep the oakum in. Having found a 
suitable pole for a mast, the rest went about 
making a sail from the one we had used for a 
covering. Also we fitted oars of a sort by tying 
short pieces of board on mangrove branches, 
having a piece of fishing line brought in his 
pocket by one of the prisoners. 

“At 3 p. m. the boat was completed and put 
afloat. We had, all this time, confidently hoped 
that she would be sufficiently large and strong 
to carry us all. We made a trial and were 
cruelly disappointed! 

“ This was, indeed, a severe trial, and the 
emotions it called up were not easy to be ex- 
pressed. She proved leaky, for we had no car- 
penter’s yard, nor smith’s shop to go to. 


98 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ And now the question arose — Who should 
go, and how many? 

“ I found the boat could not carry more than 
six, four to row, one to steer and one to bail. 

“ Three of the Spaniards and the Frenchman 
claimed the right, as being best acquainted with 
the nearest inhabitants. Likewise they had, 
when taken, two boats left at St. Maria, about 
forty miles distant, which they were confident 
of finding. Mr. Brackett, it was agreed, should 
go in my stead, because my papers must accom- 
pany me as a necessary protection, and my men 
apprehended danger, if they were lost. They 
wished that Joseph Baxter should go., because 
he could speak both Spanish and English. This 
left Manuel, George, Thomas and myself 
to await their return. They promised to 
come back in two or three days for the rest of 
us. 

“ Having thus made all arrangements, and 
putting on board a keg of the least salt water, 
with a few pancakes and salt fish, they set off a 
little before sunset with our prayers for their 
safety and return to our relief. To launch off 
into the wide ocean, with strength almost ex- 
hausted, and in such a frail boat as this, you will 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 99 


say was very hazardous, and so, in truth, it was, 
but what was there left to us? 

“ Their intention was to touch at the Key 
where the Exertion was, and, if no boat was to 
be found there, to proceed on to St. Maria, and 
if they found none there, to go on to Trinidad 
and send us relief. But, alas, that was the last 
time I ever saw them. 

“ Friday, February 1st. This day we rose 
early, and traversed the beach in search of 
cockles, but found very few. W e returned to our 
tent and I made some skillygolee, or flour and 
salt water boiled together, which we found bet- 
ter than the clear salty water. We passed the 
day very uncomfortably and my people were 
dissatisfied at not having an equal chance — as 
they called it — with the others in the boat. 

“ Saturday, 2nd. Thomas and George made 
another visit to the windward Keys, where they 
found some more shooks and two pieces of spars 
and towed them around as before. We now had 
some hopes of finding enough to make us a raft, 
which would carry us to some place of relief, in 
case the boat should not return. 

“ Sunday, 3rd. A calm, warm day, but a 
very gloomy one to us. It now became difficult 


100 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


to support life. Our provisions were nearly 
expended, there was no appearance of rain since 
the night we first landed. Our thirst was in- 
creasing, our strength wasting, our few clothes 
hanging in rags, our beards of great length and 
almost turned white, nothing like relief before 
us and no boat in sight. We had marked out, 
each one of us, the place for his grave. 

“ Monday, 4th. Having seriously reflected 
on our situation, we concluded to put what 
shooks and spars we had, together, to form a 
raft and ascertain what weight it would carry. 
Here again we were disappointed, for we had 
not wood enough to bear scarcely two of us. 

“ Tuesday, 5th. About 10 o’clock, A. m., I 
discovered a boat drifting by on the southeast 
side of the island, about a mile distant. I 
deemed it a providential thing, and urged 
Thomas and George trying to get her by using 
the raft, which would, however, barely abide 
their weight. They reluctantly consented and 
set off, but it was nearly 3 p. m. before they came 
up with her. 

“ It was the same boat we had built! 

“ Where, then, was my friend Brackett and 
those who went with him? 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 101 

“ The men who went for the boat found it full 
of water, without oars, sail or bailer. Being in 
this condition and about three miles to the lee- 
ward, the men found it impossible to tow her up, 
and were till eleven o’clock at night getting back 
with the raft. They were so exhausted that had 
it not been utterly calm, they could never have 
returned. 

“ Wednesday, 6th. This morning was the 
most gloomy I had ever experienced. There 
appeared hardly a ray of hope that Brackett 
could return, seeing that the boat was lost. Our 
provisions nearly gone, our mouths parched ex- 
tremely with thirst, our strength wasted, our 
spirits broken, and our hopes imprisoned within 
the circumference of this desolate island in the 
midst of an unfrequented ocean, all these 
things gave to the scene around us the hue of 
death. 

“ In the midst of this dreadful despondence, a 
sail hove in sight. Our hopes were raised, of 
course, but no sooner raised than darkened, by 
hearing a gun fired. Here, then, was another 
gang of pirates! 

“ She soon, however, came near enough to 
anchor, and her boat pushed off towards us with 


102 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


three men in her. Thinking it no worse to 
die by the sword than by famine, I walked 
down immediately to meet them. I knew them 
not. 

“ A moment before the boat touched the 
ground, a man leaped from her bows and caught 
me in his arms. 

“ It was Nickols! 

“No words can express my emotions at this 
moment. This was a friend indeed! The rea- 
son of my not recognizing them before, they had 
all cut off their beards and their whiskers. 

“Turning to my fellow-sufferers, Nickols 
asked: 

“ ‘ Are these all that are left of you? Where 
are the others?’ Then, seeing David’s grave, 
‘ Are they dead, then? I suspected it. I knew 
what you were put here for!’ 

“ As soon as I could recover myself, I gave 
him an account of Mr. Brackett and the others. 
. . . I took the last piece of paper that I had 

and wrote with a pencil a few lines informing 
the mate of our rescue. ... I put the pa- 
per in a bottle, previously found on the beach, 
put in a stopper and left it, together with what 
little flour remained, a keg of water from 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 103 

Nickols’ boat and a few other things which 
might be of service to Brackett, if he returned. 

“ Nickols then related the manner of his de- 
sertion from the pirates, which had been made 
possible by the pirate capture of four small ves- 
sels, on board one of which Nickols had been sent 
as prize master. One dark night, he altered 
his course and slipped away. 

“ From Nickols I heard that Jonnia had been 
made captain of the pirates, at the beginning, 
because he was the only one who had been a pi- 
rate before, and that he, Bolidar and one other 
of the pirates held together because the captain 
had revealed to them the hiding-place of an old 
hulk in which the pirate band with which he had 
before been associated had hidden their treasure. 
Nickols knew, in a general manner, the location, 
but had never visited the place. 

“We then decided, since there was plenty of 
water and provision aboard, to go in search of 
this hulk, though I was anxious to get to Trini- 
dad and show my papers. We went first to the 
Exertion , in the hope of finding some clue to the 
fate of my friend, Mr. Brackett, but nothing 
appeared. Four days later, we fell in with a 
privateer brig. 


104 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Nickols declared that he could recognize 
some of the pirates on board her, and we fired 
upon them. But they were more heavily 
gunned than we and sent a boat aboard. The 
vessel proved to be a vessel with a Mexican com- 
mission. Happily, I still had my papers and 
could show who I was, and why we had fired. 
We could not explain our course, however, not 
wishing to reveal that we were on a treasure 
search and were compelled to return to Trinidad. 

“ Before leaving me, however, Nickols told 
me that the hulk was moored in a deep bay of 
Ghost Island, quite hidden by mangrove bushes, 
about sixty miles north of the island on which 
we had been marooned and lying due west of 
the Handcuffs Rocks. He intended to go in 
search of the treasure hulk, but, receiving an 
offer at Trinidad to go as second mate of a deep- 
water ship, he accepted. I never heard of him 
again. 

“ For many months I remained without any 
certain information respecting the fate of Mr. 
Brackett and his companions. But, in the 
course of the following autumn, Mr. Brackett 
very unexpectedly paid me a visit in my home 
in Massachusetts. . . . He gave me an ac- 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 105 


count of his adventures and of the reasons why 
he did not return to us. 

“ He told me that, when they had left us, and 
put to sea in the miserable boat which we had 
constructed, they went to the Exertion and for- 
tunately found a better boat, of which they took 
possession, and suffered the old one to float 
away, and it accordingly passed our solitary 
island in its random course, causing us a great 
deal of alarm. 

“ From the wreck, they steered among the 
Keys to the mainland of Cuba, and reached the 
town of Principe, where my cargo was sold. 
Then Mr. Brackett related his tale of suffering 
and requested assistance to rescue the remaining 
prisoners — ourselves — on the Key. The au- 
thorities furnished him with several soldiers, 
with whom he again put to sea, with the inten- 
tion of returning to our rescue. They had gone 
but a short distance, however, when the soldiers 
positively refused to go any further, bad 
weather threatening, and forced him to return 
with them to Principe. Thus all his hopes of 
being able to rescue us were extinguished. 

“ A stranger, and helpless as he was, it was 
out of his power to do anything more, and he 


106 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


could only hope that we might have been saved 
in some other way. Friendless, without money, 
and debilitated by recent suffering, he hardly 
knew which way to turn. He was desirous of 
reaching home, and finally decided to travel on 
foot to the north side of Cuba. After a long 
and tedious journey, during which he suffered 
dreadfully, he at length reached Havana, from 
which port he took passage to Boston. . . . 

“ Since, I have met with Mr. Stewart, who 
was commercial agent in Trinidad at the time of 
my capture. He informed me that the piratical 
schooner Mexican was afterwards chased by an 
English government vessel, from Jamaica, 
which was cruising in search of it. Being hotly 
pursued, the pirates left their vessel and fled to 
the mangrove bushes, on an island similar to 
that on which they had left me and my crew to 
die. The English surrounded them, and thus 
they were cut off from all hope of escape. 

“ They remained there fourteen days, when, 
being almost entirely subdued by famine, eleven 
surrendered themselves, and were taken, among 
them Bolidar, who declared that it would have 
been easy for him to buy his freedom if it were 
not that their treasure hulk had sunk in four 


MAROONED ON THE KEY 107 


fathoms of water. The others, the captain 
among them, refused to surrender themselves 
and lived by cannibalism. The English vessel 
remained there thirty days further, long enough, 
surely, for the pirates — who were without food 
or water — to die from famine and thirst. 

“ The few who were taken were carried by the 
government vessel into Trinidad. Mr. Stewart 
said that he saw them himself, and such miser- 
able objects that still possessed life he had never 
beheld. They were in a state of starvation, 
their beards had grown to a fearful length, their 
bodies were covered with filth and vermin. From 
Trinidad they were taken to Kingston, Jamaica, 
and there hanged.” 

Latimer stopped, refolded the papers, and 
looked up. 

“ That’s all of it,” he said. 

“ It’s enough,” declared the “ Admiral.” 
“ I’m glad to have heard it. I’ve read pirate 
stories a-plenty, but that is the first log I’ve ever 
heard written by a sailorman which tells just 
what happened in shipshape fashion.” 

“ An’ for the treasure hulk, sir? ” queried the 
sailor. 

“ Well,” answered the “Admiral ” cautiously. 


108 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ I don’t much like it. ‘ Ghost Island ’ has a 
bad name. There’s queer doin’s been seen 
there! ” 

“ Oh, that’s all talk, Grap! ” interjected Lati- 
mer, who was proud of being up-to-date and 
scorning the superstitions of the sea. “ If the 
hulk is in only four fathoms of water, we ought 
to be able to get her, easy. That’s nothing in a 
diving dress ! ” 

“ I’ve no objections to goin’ along,” said the 
old wrecker, “ if Son Jerry wants to take the 
Moray there. I used to know the reefs down 
that way, once. An’, I s’pose, if we see any 
ghosts down there, Lat’ll fight ’em off! ” 


CHAPTER V 


GHOST ISLAND 

Some little time was spent in arranging the 
affairs of the Ocean Fay. The skipper of the 
wrecked vessel, despite his threats, made no of- 
ficial protest concerning the “Admiral’s ” sum- 
mary proceedings, for he was well aware that he 
had been at fault in refusing assistance for a 
vessel “ in distress.” Moreover, he was wise 
enough to see that Bahaman opinion would ac- 
cord rather with a countryman than with a 
stranger. On his part, “Admiral ” Voley took 
the honest stand of charging only the ten thou- 
sand dollars which had been offered at the be- 
ginning, although the skipper’s delay had made 
the task both more dangerous and more difficult. 

During this time, Mark Hoveller, the sailor 
who had brought the tale of the pirates and the 
treasure hulk, stayed in a small hut on North 
Biminis, awaiting the time when both the “Ad- 
miral ” and the Moray should be free. Latimer 
went to see him quite often, and at last learned 
109 


110 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


the reason why the sailor had never been able to 
get a crew together to search for the treasure. 
Mark, himself, was so excessively afraid of sea 
phantoms that he feared to go himself, and, at 
the same time, was so suspicious that he would 
not let a search party go without him. 

“Where did the island get its bad name, 
Mark? ” queried Latimer, one day. 

“Ain’t ye never heard the story o’ Ghost Is- 
land? Why, lad, that’s one o’ the worst spots 
on the seas ! ” was the terror-stricken answer. 
“ Years ago, long afore Columbus first discov- 
ered the West Indies, Ghost Island used to be 
’way over t’other side o’ the Atlantic. The 
Hand o’ Satan Island, it was called then.” 

“ But how could it get over here, Mark? ” the 
boy asked, amused at the sailor’s credulity, but 
impressed by his obvious earnestness. 

“Ain’t yo’ never heard o’ wanderin’ islands? 
There’s a lot o’ them driftin’ about in the sea! 
Many a good ship has gone down to Davy 
Jones’ Locker, because o’ them. Some o’ them 
are made of a magnet stone, an’ when a ship 
comes near ’em, every nail or anything that’s 
made of iron or steel flies to the rock an’ the 
vessel falls to pieces. 


GHOST ISLAND 


111 


“ Some o’ them spout flame, like volcanoes, 
bringin’ up fire out o’ the middle o’ the sea. 
There’s others are like big islands o’ seaweed, 
but so solid that trees grow on ’em, an’ when a 
ship gets near ’em, she’s stuck an’ can’t never 
get away. 

“ Then there’s the rock where Judas Iscariot 
goes to cool himself on Sundays. That comes 
up one minute after midnight on Sunday morn- 
in’s, sometimes here an’ sometimes there, an’ 
sinks again, one minute afore midnight. 

“ Some o’ them islands look like icebergs, 
from far off, but inside there are fields an’ 
houses an’ all sorts o’ things. There’s a few 
been seen in the sky, upside down, like a mirage. 

“Ay, lad, there’s a many o’ these wanderin’ 
islands, but they’re hard for a sailin’ ship to 
come up to ’em, for they always drift straight to 
wind’ard. Folks on steamers never see ’em, for 
they’re not sailormen at all. But the places are 
there, an’, if yo’ look on old charts, yo’ll see 
marked down a lot o’ islands that folks never see 
to-day. How’ll yo’ explain that?” 

“ Mistakes of the early navigators, I sup- 
pose,” hazarded the boy. 

“ No, lad, not mistakes,” declared Mark, 


112 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


shaking his head solemnly. “ I could spin yo’ 
some queer yarns about them islands. But yo’ 
was askin’ about Ghost Island, partickler. It 
was this-a-way: 

“ Before the Atlantic was first crossed by Co- 
lumbus it was guarded by two islands, one good, 
an’ one bad. Good spirits lived on one, demons 
on t’other. The good one was St. Brendan’s 
Isle. Yo’ can see it on the old charts, an’ there’s 
more than one man livin’ to-day that’s seen it. 
Irish folk an’ Brittany folk see it oftenest. 
That’s why the folk in Brittany throw flowers 
to Mother Carey’s Chickens on All Souls’ Day. 
They know the birds’ll fly straight to St. Bren- 
dan’s Isle an’ carry their remembrances to the 
drowned sailors what live there. 

“ The bad island was known as the Hand o’ 
Satan. Yo’ll find that on the old charts, too, 
due west o’ the Straits o’ Gibraltar. Sometimes 
it was an island, with high, black sharp rocks an’ 
an on-shore gale always blowin’. Other times, 
there was nothing to be seen but breakers, an’ a 
twenty -knot current drivin’ a ship on. 

“ Mostwise, though, it wasn’t to be seen as 
land at all, but when a ship went sailin’ over it, 
the Hand o’ Satan, big an’ black, the knuckles 



Courtesy of Merrill, Higgins and Co. 

The Hand of the Sea-Fiend. 

Until the days of Columbus, it was believed that the Atlantic Ocean, 
or the Sea of Darkness, was the realm of a demon who grasped ships 
and drew them below the waters. 






QC 

X 

J2 



9 




GHOST ISLAND 


113 


swelled an’ knotty, the finger-nails pointed an’ 
red-hot, would reach out o’ the sea — nigh as high 
as the topmasts of a full-rigged ship — an’ drag 
a vessel to the bottom. 

“ Where are them islands now, yo’ ask? St. 
Brendan’s Isle, so I’ve heard tell, is still a-wan- 
derin’. 4 Fiddlers’ Green ’ is on it, the place 
where a decent sailorman goes, when his sea- 
farin’ days is done. Fair an’ high she lies, with 
never a storm around it. Mother Carey’s 
Chickens go there, but no other birds o’ the sea. 
The gulls, them souls o’ captains who ha’ lost 
their ships an’ are doomed to go a-wanderin’ till 
the day o’ judgment, never come a-nigh that is- 
land. That’s why yo’ hear ’em scream so high. 

44 Onst in a great while, a sailin’ ship’ll see St. 
Brendan’s Isle in the distance. That means 
there’s some one aboard’ll never reach port, but 
whoever dies, that trip, goes straight to 4 Fid- 
dlers’ Green.’ There’s a many have tried to sail 
for it, but no matter what course ye steer there’s 
only one ship built that’ll ever drop anchor in 
her harbors.” 

44 What ship is that? ” asked Latimer. 

44 She has a-many names, that craft. When 
I was sailin’ out o’ St. Malo, they used to call her 


114 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

La Grande Chasse Foudre. Several thousand 
leagues long she is, an’ her masts are so tall that 
if yo’ started as a boy to reach her maintop, yo’d 
be a gray old man before yo’ reached the futtock 
shrouds. 

“ There’s plenty o’ time aboard that craft, lad. 
When she goes about, it takes her a hundred 
years to go from full to full. It takes two hun- 
dred years to raise her anchor. Her signal hal- 
liards are larger than the hull of an ocean 
steamer, an’ her hold has food an’ wine enough 
to last a million men a million million years. 
There’s no dyin’ aboard La Grande Chasse 
Foudre , lad, an’ what you think is the rainbow 
is just the sunshine playin’ on her pennant. 
She’ll drop anchor in the harbor o’ St. Bren- 
dan’s Isle, but no other ship ever will.” 

“And the Hand of Satan Island, Mark?” 
queried Latimer. 

“Ay, the Hand o’ Satan. That was a big 
land, too, once. Covered with forests it was, 
trees with a wood as solid as iron an’ as light as 
cork. With these the Demon built the first pi- 
rate ship. Black she was, an’ the nails that held 
her together were red-hot an’ stayed red-hot in 
the coldest seas. Her sails were made o’ grave- 


GHOST ISLAND 


115 


cloths, an’ her riggin’ was twisted from the hair 
o’ vampires. Her hold was full o’ burnin’ sul- 
phur an’ yo’ could smell her a hundred sea-miles 
away. Her crew were sailormen who had been 
killed or drowned while mutineers. All had 
dogs’ jaws an’ they tore each other to pieces day 
an’ night. 

“ Then the Demon got so proud o’ his ship 
that, one dark night, he set himself to board La 
Grande Chasse Foudre. The officer o’ the 
watch, that night, was St. Elmo, an’ when he 
bid the Demon keep away, the skipper o’ the 
Black Ship laughed. 

“At the sound o’ that laugh, St. Elmo raised 
his finger, an’ great shafts o’ white light came 
flashin’ down from the sky. Flame without 
heat, that was, my lad, an’ when it struck the 
Black Ship, she blew up into a million million 
pieces. Even the water o’ the ocean can’t put 
’em out, an’ now, any dark night, yo’ can lean 
over a ship’s bow, an’ see the pieces o’ the Black 
Ship sparkle in the water.” 

“ Phosphorescence! ” interrupted Latimer. 
“ That’s made by the light given out by myriads 
of little sea-creatures, so small that you can 
hardly see them.” 


116 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Maybe,” answered Mark, wholly uncon- 
vinced. “ I’ve heard folks talk that way afore. 
But where else, except from a Demon, would 
yo’ get fire that water couldn’t put out? 
What’s more, ships that have been driven on the 
rocks a-purpose, have blue flames around ’em, 
an’ others don’t.” 

“ That’s phosphorescence, due to rotting 
wood,” the boy explained. 

“ Maybe,” repeated the sailor. “ But yo’ll 
not deny that corpse candles are lighted on the 
masts an’ yards of a ship by St. Elmo to show 
that there’s ill around a ship but that she’ll get 
safe to port, or, if she sinks, that every one on 
board’ll go to Fiddlers’ Green.” 

“That’s all superstition!” retorted Latimer, 
impatiently. “ St. Elmo’s fire, or corposants, 
are nothing but a slow discharge of electricity 
from the air to the sea. They’re really a sort of 
lightning.” 

“ They don’t burn,” protested Mark. “ I’ve 
seen a man, on the yard-arm, hold his hand above 
his head, an’ there was a corpse candle blazin’ 
from the tips of each of his fingers, an’ he de- 
clared, when he came down from aloft, that he 
didn’t even feel his hand warm.” 


GHOST ISLAND 117 

“ That’s possible enough,” the boy admitted. 
u St. Elmo’s fires don’t burn.” 

“An’ lightnin’ does !” retorted Mark, trium- 
phantly, feeling he had got the best of the argu- 
ment. “ Where will yo’ get a fire that doesn’t 
burn, savin’ from St. Elmo?” 

“ But the island, Mark? ” interjected Lati- 
mer, not knowing quite what reply to make. 

“Ay, the island! Well, when the Demon got 
back to his island, after his Black Ship had been 
all blown to bits, he found it adrift. For a long 
time, by usin’ spells, he was able to keep it 
abreast o’ the Straits o’ Gibraltar, an’ so kept 
any ships from sailin’ to the west’ard. But 
when Columbus came across, with every man 
aboard a Christian, an’ with the Cross painted 
on the sails of his little ships, the Demon had to 
run. He was pushed west’ard an’ west’ard un- 
til he got here in the West Indies. He tried to 
force the island against the blessed trade winds, 
but the island broke to bits an’ the pieces drifted 
all over the Seven Seas. Ghost Island is one o’ 
those bits, an’ Ghost Key, off the coast o’ Flor- 
ida, is another. The Bermudas were called the 
Devil’s Islands once. Then there’s a lot o’ 
places in these waters that he has a right to, be- 


118 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


cause pirates an’ slavers have done a lot o’ mur- 
ders an’ there’s never been a good deed done on 
’em.” 

“ In that case,” suggested Latimer, “ the 
Demon must be getting fewer chances all the 
time, for there are no pirates in these seas to- 
day.” 

“I wouldn’t be too sure, lad!” warned the 
sailor. “ In 1902, when I was aboard a barque, 
bound for San Domingo, we saw a swift-sailing 
brig overhaul a topsail schooner. Even with the 
naked eye, we could see puffs o’ smoke, an’ the 
skipper, with his glass, said he could see bodies 
bein’ heaved overboard. The fight didn’t last 
long. Presently the topsail schooner was hauled 
off on the starboard tack and set off after the 
brig.” 

“ Why didn’t you go to the rescue? ” put in 
Latimer, with boyish indignation. 

“An’ get took ourselves? We weren’t car- 
ryin’ no arms to fight a pirate ! Oh, yes, lad, the 
Jolly Roger is still a-flyin’. There’s contracts 
with the Demon goin’ on these days, too! 

“ In 1909, the negro skipper of a brigantine, 
hailin’ from Jacmel, Haiti, was burned alive on 
board his ship by his negro crew, because he ad- 


GHOST ISLAND 119 

mitted to havin’ made a contract with the Black 
One to run the ship on Ghost Island. The mate 
took the brigantine back to Jacmel, an’ gave his- 
self up to the authorities to stand trial. 

“ There was an investigation, an’ it was found 
out that two ships o’ which this skipper had been 
master, had been lost mysteriously. The court 
set every man o’ the crew free, an’ thanked ’em 
for havin’ freed the seas o’ such a captain. The 
owners gave the mate command of the ship.” 

“Look here, Mark!” questioned Latimer. 
“ If you’re so superstitious about these things, 
how did you have the nerve to run the Ocean 
Fay on a reef? ” 

“ The skipper’s a Finn,” answered the sailor, 
lowering his voice. “ It ain’t no sin to wreck a 
ship what has a Finn in command. They’re 
wind-wizards, every one of ’em.” 

“So!” exclaimed Latimer. He had heard 
from his grandfather of this old superstition of 
the sea, and to what lengths it had reached. Not 
many years ago, an English sailor was hanged 
for killing a shipmate. He did not deny his 
crime, but declared that he ought to be re- 
warded, rather than punished, for the slain man 
was a Finn. 


120 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

The cruise of the President , bound out from 
Charleston, is famous. When off the Bahamas, 
a terrific storm came up, blowing — in a way no 
sailorman had ever seen before — clear in the 
teeth of the trade-winds. The storm was al- 
ways worse when a certain man was at the 
wheel. While he was on deck, the watch below 
broke open his sea-chest, and found some writing 
in the Finn language. They accused him of 
raising the storm, and one of the crew started 
after him with a sheath-knife. The accused man 
jumped overboard and — according to the ship’s 
log — ran over the sea as if it were dry land. 
The storm lulled a little, then rose again, worse 
than before. So the sailors threw the Finn’s 
sea-chest overboard. Again it lulled and again 
it rose. They hunted the vessel high and low, 
and at last found an old shoe, which had be- 
longed to the Finn, jammed in behind the 
pumps. They threw that overboard, and the 
storm stopped that instant and the sea became 
calm. 

With Mark spreading these wild and fear- 
some yarns on Biminis, it was not surprising 
that when the time came for the Moray to start 
out for Ghost Island, nearly every negro member 


GHOST ISLAND 


121 


of the tug’s crew demanded a vacation. Se- 
cretly, the “Admiral ” sympathized with them, 
but, disciplinarian as he was, he knew that none 
of these requests could be granted. If one man 
left, all would leave. He must combat super- 
stition with superstition. He called the crew 
together. 

“ Men,” said the old wrecker, “ ye’ve heard 
we’re goin’ to hunt treasure off Ghost Island. 
That’s right. We are. It’s a bad spot. But 
when it comes to danger, it’s not as bad as it’s 
painted. Only, if any one o’ ye has murdered 
a man — I don’t mean in a fight, but in cold blood 
— let him step aft an’ I’ll give him his pay an’ 
let him go.” 

No one moved. Not one of the men was will- 
ing to confess himself a cowardly murderer. 

“ Very good,” said the “Admiral ” after a 
pause. “ Now, men, ye’ve heard that on Ghost 
Island there’s mostly the spirits o’ pirates. It’s 
likely enough. But ye know, as well as I do, 
that a dead pirate can’t come on board a ship 
where there’s no gold aboard. The Moray ’ll 
sail without a speck o’ gold aboard her, an’ the 
man that brings any aboard’ll be marooned. 
Mind ye that! We’ll nail a silver coin on the 


122 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

port an’ the starboard bows o’ the Moray an’ 
every one o’ ye will nail a silver coin on the top 
o’ his sea-chest. 

“ What’s more, we’ll take a-plenty o’ crabs in 
the hold. Bein’ the Demon’s messengers, to tell 
him where the drowned men lie, he’ll never sink 
a ship wi’ crabs aboard. One o’ you will ask a 
friend — a landsman — to steal a black cat an’ 
smuggle it aboard. The first man who sees 
Ghost Island’ll throw the cat overboard. That 
way he’ll be in no danger. An’ go to church, all 
o’ you, the Sunday afore we sail. 

“ Now, is there any one o’ ye who refuses to 
go?” 

The negroes shuffled uneasily, but the “Ad- 
miral ” had taken the wind out of their sails by 
viewing the superstitious perils in their own 
light. 

“ Go forrard,” said the old wrecker. “ Have 
a fo’c’s’le council an’ come aft in five minutes.” 

In less than the appointed time the men were 
back. 

“ We’ll go, sah,” answered the coxswain, act- 
ing as spokesman, “ if yo’ come along, sah! ” 

“ Very good,” the “Admiral ” answered. 
“ I’ll go with ye. We sail Monday mornin’. 


GHOST ISLAND 123 

Don’t forget! Every man o’ ye at church the 
day before!” 

“Yes, sah!” answered the coxswain, and 
there was no doubt as to the sincerity of the an- 
swer. 

Latimer, who had heard this whole dialogue, 
chafed inwardly at what he considered his 
grandfather’s weakness, but he did not dare to 
protest. He was anxious to go, himself, and he 
knew very well that if he made any objection to 
the plans he would promptly be ordered to stay 
at home. 

The appointed day came at last. Evidently, 
some one of the negroes had blabbed the pur- 
pose of the voyage, for there was quite a crowd 
to see the Moray start. The men of the crew 
were ill-at-ease, but every one was there. The 
first object which caught Latimer’s sight, as he 
boarded the tug, was a huge black tom-cat, lean 
and scrawny, with a stout collar around his neck, 
and fastened to the fore-hatch by a chain. 

The day was warm and the sea calm. The 
Moray steamed away, amid the silence of the 
folks on shore and the equal muteness of those 
on deck. Even Latimer was conscious of a feel- 
ing of constraint not far removed from anxiety, 


124 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


though he tried to shake it off as unworthy of 
such a very up-to-date person as he believed 
himself to be. 

The afternoon and the first watch of the night 
passed without incident, but, just as eight bells 
was sounding for midnight, the propeller 
stopped with a jar that shook the engines. 

The engineer, who was just about to turn in, 
leaped forward and shut off the steam. 

In an instant every person aboard was on 
deck. 

The engineer, a Scotchman, when questioned 
as to the damage, answered, quietly enough: 

“ Nae damage yet. ’Tis weed around the 
propeller, I’m dootin’.” 

Captain Voley was just about to order the 
boat out to clear the propeller, when the old 
wrecker laid a hand on his arm. 

“ Go slow, Son Jerry, go slow! ” he warned. 

Then, calling the coxswain, his great voice 
rose in the silence: 

“ Heave the lead, there.” 

A pause, then came the answering cry: 

“ By the mark, Seven! ” 

“ Better drop one o’ the anchors, Son Jerry, 
an’ stand anchor watch,” suggested the old man. 


GHOST ISLAND 


125 


“ It’ll be light by five, an’ it’s better to wait five 
hours than to have the men refuse to get in the 
boat by dark.” 

The captain of the Moray would have pro- 
tested, but the “Admiral’s ” suggestion, while, 
in this instance, gently worded, was equivalent 
to an order. 

He gave the necessary instructions, and the 
alertness with which the men went about the 
work of anchoring showed how thoroughly they 
approved of the order. 

Shortly after two bells in the morning watch, 
or five o’clock in the morning, as soon as it was 
daylight, the boat was put out and, as the engi- 
neer had expected, the propeller was found 
fouled with gulf-weed. The men pulled it away 
with a boat-hook and their sheath-knives, but 
not one of them would touch the weed, and the 
engineer, superintending the job, was canny 
enough not to protest. 

Ten minutes later, the propeller free, the 
Moray started southward again. 

As the day wore on, a brooding heat hung 
over the sea. The limpid blue color, so deep an 
azure in West Indian waters, began to appear 
greasy and pale. A scum formed on the sur- 


126 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


face. Instead of the healthy salty smell of the 
ocean, a stench of stagnation and decay arose 
from the surface of the deep. It was a phe- 
nomenon not uncommon in long-standing calms 
in tropical waters, the same of which Coleridge 
wrote: “ The very deep did rot. . . . That 

ever this should be, Yea, slimy things did crawl 
with legs, upon the slimy sea.” 

Mark, who was evidently well versed in the 
gruesome lore of the sea, was standing in the 
bows, telling some of his stories to the deck- 
hands. The old “Admiral,” whose eye was 
everywhere, noted it, and guessed from the atti- 
tudes of the blacks, that the sailor was again 
sowing the seeds of panic. He frowned, and, 
beckoning Latimer to accompany him, went for- 
ward. 

“ What was the yarn, Hoveller? ” he asked. 

The sailor looked confused, but the coxswain, 
who knew that he was a trusted member of the 
crew, spoke up promptly. 

“Nothin’ wrong, Admiral, no sah! We was 
jes’ a-hearin’ how, in a stinkin’ sea like this, dem 
hyar big cuttlefishes comes up f’m the bottom 
an’ swallers down a ship.” 

“ Did ye ever see a cuttlefish big enough 


GHOST ISLAND 127 

to swallow a ship, Mark? ” the old wrecker 
asked. 

“ Not a whole one, no, sir,” the sailor an- 
swered promptly. “ But I saw a sperm whale 
come up to the top once, sir, an’ the arms o’ one 
o’ those devil-fish were wrapped clear around 
him. The arms were as long as a lower main- 
mast, an’ as thick.” 

The negro crew gave a gasp of horror. 

“ How about it, Lat? ” queried the “Ad- 
miral,” turning to his grandson, for he knew the 
lad was forever reading of the mysteries of the 
sea. 

“ It’s likely enough, Grap,” the boy answered. 
“Mark’s probably talking about the giant squid. 
No one really does know how big they grow. In 
one of my books it tells how some fellows on a 
scientific expedition got a whale in a vital spot 
with the harpoon gun. She sounded, and when 
she came up again, half the arms or tentacles of 
one of these giant squids were around her. 
They measured them. The longest one was 
sixty feet long and five feet thick at the bottom.” 

“Cuttlefish attacking whales, Lat!” ex- 
claimed the old wrecker. “ That doesn’t sound 
reasonable, lad.” 


128 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ It’s the whales that attack them,” Latimer 
responded. “ They’re a cachalot’s favorite 
food. But the squids can put up a good fight. 
They’re awful creatures, really. The big cone- 
shaped body is so flabby that it spreads all over. 
The head is sort of shapeless, too, with huge 
black unwinking and wicked eyes, bigger than a 
man’s head, all the time looking for something 
to fill the huge and gaping mouth, which has two 
horny tips like the beak of a monster parrot. 
All around this mouth, the eight powerful arms 
or tentacles, with suckers all along their length, 
writhe around all the time, trying to catch at 
something. At the same time, the two long 
feeler tentacles, twice as long as the arms, and 
with suckers only at the tips, shoot out like darts 
in every direction, groping after some prey. 

“ Then, down from the surface, comes rush- 
ing the cachalot or sperm whale, looking for his 
dinner, and knowing that he’s not likely to get 
it without a stiff fight. Being an air-breathing 
animal, and having come a long way down, the 
whale hasn’t much time to cruise around and 
hunt for a small squid. He dashes at the first 
one he sees, whether it be big or small, trying to 
tear away big chunks of the flabby body of 


GHOST ISLAND 129 

the squid, or to bite off and devour one of the 
arms. 

“ With a swirl the huge under-sea creature 
throws his other tentacles around the whale, try- 
ing to strangle him, and then there’s a fight! 
The whale must snap quick enough to bite off 
those encircling tentacles and free himself. The 
squid will clamp one or two of those sucking 
arms across the whale’s mouth, binding them to- 
gether so’s the cachalot can’t open his mouth. 
If he can do that, it’s good-bye whale, for if the 
squid can only hold him down long enough, the 
whale can’t go up for air, and gets drowned. 
Then the parrot-like beak of the giant cuttle- 
fish begins to tear at the body of the whale, and 
the squid has a feast.” 

“An’ has such a fight ever been seen by any 
one? ” queried the “Admiral.” 

“ No, Grap, because it always happens at the 
bottom of the sea. But there’s lots of ways of 
finding it out. You remember, Grap, that book 
on Oceanography by the Prince of Monaco you 
gave me last Christmas? Well, in that book it 
tells how the Prince, in his special exploring 
yacht, caught a cachalot whale that had just 
come up from the bottom after having had a 


130 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


fight with a squid. The whale was shot, and, 
when he was dying, he vomited up all he had 
in his stomach, and it consisted of nothing but 
squid. But the cachalot’s lips were all raw 
where the suckers of the cuttlefish had been 
fastened. It hadn’t been a very big one, not 
more than twenty or twenty-five feet long, and 
the whale had been able to break away.” 

“ What’s the biggest one that’s ever been seen 
whole? Do ye happen to know, Lat? ” 

“ Yes, Grap. I read about it. One was 
caught in some nets off Newfoundland, which 
from the end of the body to the tip of the ten- 
tacular arms was fifty-eight and one-half feet 
long. The body was over twelve feet and the 
weight was over half a ton. But, as that fellow 
had his eight clutching arms only twenty-three 
feet long and three feet through, he would have 
been small to that monster whose branching 
arms were sixty feet long and five feet through. 
Why, that chap must have been three times 
as big, and have weighed a ton and a half! 
A whale wouldn’t have much chance with 
him! ” 

“Ay, mates, yo’ see,” put in Mark, “ they’re 
bigger, even nor I said! Was I wrong when I 


GHOST ISLAND 131 

said one o’ them critters could pull down a full- 
rigged ship?” 

“ Yes, Mark, you were quite wrong, ’way 
off,” put in Latimer, quickly, for he saw, now, 
why his grandfather had wanted him to tell 
about the squid. “ Those monsters don’t ever 
come to the surface, for one thing, and they 
wouldn’t fasten their suckers on anything of 
wood or iron, for another. For a third reason, 
all the waters around here are too shallow for 
them. They live where it’s cold, and dark, and 
where the pressure of the water is so great that 
a man couldn’t go a fraction of the distance 
down, in the strongest diving bell that ever was 
made. So, neither on the surface, nor anywhere 
that a diver can go, is he ever likely to find a 
giant squid.” 

One of the men, the best diver of the outfit, 
who had been listening intently, breathed a sigh 
of relief on hearing this statement. 

“ I sho’ is glad to hear that, Mas’er Lati- 
mer!” he ejaculated. “Mark, hyar, he said 
they might come up any time, when the sea gits 
all greasy, like it is now.” 

“Not a bit of it!” answered Latimer confi- 
dently. 


132 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“An’ when the sea gets all whitish and stink- 
in’, like it is now, what’s that for? ” asked Mark. 

“ It isn’t for anything,” the boy responded 
promptly. “ It’s because of something. It’s 
because there’s no air in the water, when the sea 
gets dead calm. It’s the wind, churning up 
the water, which keeps it pure at the top. If it 
wasn’t for that, the surface fishes would die 
mighty fast. When it’s a calm, like it is now, the 
sea begins to go short on air, an’ all the millions 
upon millions of tiny sea-creatures which need a 
lot of air in the water die right away. They 
float up to the top and make that scum. That 
brings to the top, sometimes, queer creatures 
which live a little way down, to eat that scum. 
But the big squids stay down. No one has ever 
seen them.” 

To this simple explanation, Mark made no 
answer, and the negro coxswain, who, like most 
of his race, had a subtle instinct for the better 
man, grinned approvingly. 

“ We’s obliged, Mas’er Latimer,” he said, 
“ fo’, sho’s yo’s alive, we was all aginnin’ to get 
mos’ scared.” 

“ No need to, Tom,” the boy replied cheer- 
fully. “.You see the Moray doesn’t seem to 


GHOST ISLAND 133 

mind it, and we’ll reach harbor some time to- 
night.” 

The coxswain thanked the lad again, and the 
group of deck-hands broke up, leaving Mark 
without an audience. 

“ Yer books can do some good, Lat,” the 
“Admiral ” admitted, as they went back to the 
chart-house. “ I could ha’ tautened that fel- 
low’s jaw-tackle, easy enough, but explainin’ 
was better. We won’t have any more trouble, 
now.” 

But, in a voyage where every man on board is 
on the lookout for evil signs, they are sure to be 
found. Towards the end of the afternoon, first 
one, then another, and finally quite a flock of 
whistling curlews came hovering about the 
ship. 

The “Admiral 99 cocked a weather eye at the 
birds and growled in stentorian tones a phrase 
which went back to the old wrecker days. Cap- 
tain Voley looked round anxiously, for the tone 
of his father’s voice showed acute annoyance. 

“ See those cussed birds?” ejaculated the old 
wrecker, catching his son’s inquiring look. 

“ Yes, what about them? ” 

“ Don’t ye know what they’re s’posed to be? ” 


134 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ No,” the captain of the Moray answered. 
“ Bad luck? ” 

“ The worst o’ luck for us,” the “Admiral ” 
answered, “ the Blacks’ll think so, anyhow. They 
call ’em the souls o’ Jews who’ve got rich by 
sendin’ sailormen to sea on rotten vessels. Ay, 
I thought so ! ” he continued, seeing Mark in 
conversation with one of the deck-hands. “ That 
sea-lawyer’s got his tongue waggin’ again.” 

“ Shoot one or two of them,” suggested Cap- 
tain Voley, curtly. “ That ought to show the 
fools they’re nothing but birds.” 

“ Got a shotgun in yer pocket? ” queried the 
old wrecker, caustically. 

The captain of the tug eyed the birds care- 
fully. Then: 

“ Do you really think the men would be 
afraid of them, Father?” he asked. 

“As long as a Black isn’t scared,” the “Ad- 
miral ” rejoined, “ he’s as plucky as a white man. 
But if he gets panicky, Son Jerry, ye might as 
well turn the bows o’ the Moray for home.” 

“ I’m reckoned the best shot on Biminis,” re- 
marked the captain of the tug, reflectively. 
Then he leaned out of the chart-house window 
and called: 


GHOST ISLAND 


135 


“ Mark Hoveller! ’’ 

“ Sir!" 

“ I suppose you’re spinning that yarn about 
those birds bein’ the ghosts o’ Jews!" 

“ Well, sir, that’s what they say about ’em." 

“ If they’re ghosts, they can’t be killed, eh? ’’ 

“ No, sir, I s’pose not,’’ the sailor answered. 

A revolver flashed into the captain’s hand and 
six shots rang out sharply, one after another. It 
was not idJy that Jerry Voley had boasted him- 
self the best shot on Biminis. Shooting a sea- 
bird with a revolver is tricky gun-play, but three 
birds fell dead on the water. 

“ So much for that ghost-yarn! " declared the 
captain of the Moray contemptuously, and drew 
in his head from the open window of the chart- 
house. The negroes laughed. 

Towards dusk a few cat’s-paws of wind ruf- 
fled the surface of the water, followed by those 
larger flurries which old-time sailors used to call 
“ cat’s-skins o’ wind." By eight bells of the sec- 
ond dog-watch, there was a light breeze blowing 
and the sea had resumed its normal blue color. 

The night passed without any misadventure, 
and Latimer, who was not keeping watch, slept 
until breakfast time. When he came out of the 


136 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


cabin, rubbing his eyes sleepily, the first thing 
he noted was that the black cat had gone. 

“ Ghost Island is in sight then, I suppose? ” 
he asked his father. 

Captain Jerry Voley pointed to a low-lying 
swampy island, lush with mangrove trees, lying 
straight ahead of them. The Moray was com- 
ing up slowly, at half -speed, for the reefs in that 
neighborhood are dangerous, and uncharted. 
The morning was bright and peaceful, and de- 
spite the sinister reputation of the place, the 
crew seemed contented enough. 

The Moray came up into soundings and 
dropped anchor. There was a slight hesitation 
among the crew when the order was given to put 
out the boat, allayed, however, when the “Ad- 
miral ” roared out: 

“ Put a keg o’ water in the boat, boys, but no 
provisions. We’re not goin’ ashore.” 

The “Admiral ” and Latimer got in the boat, 
Captain Voley stayed aboard the Moray . The 
little boat poked in and out the several bays 
along the shore until the shore opened out into a 
deep bay, lined on either side with mangrove 
trees. The water was as clear as crystal, and 
Latimer, leaning over the side of the boat, with 


GHOST ISLAND 


137 


a water glass, watched the bottom as the boat 
zigzagged up the bay from one side to the other. 

“ Here she is ! ” he cried suddenly. 

“ ’Vast all! ” roared the old wrecker, and the 
boat glided on. 

Latimer waved with his hand, and the cox- 
swain, not needing any orders, put the boat di- 
rectly over the spot where the treasure hulk lay. 

A hand-line with a light lead was dropped, 
showing, as Lincoln’s story had told, that she 
was lying in four fathoms — twenty-four feet — 
of water. 

“ Looks like a good luck voyage, instead of 
bad luck one, eh, boys ! ” exclaimed the old 
wrecker. “ Drop that little kedge, Tom, and 
buoy her. We’ll get back for dinner, an’ come 
out wi’ the divin’ apparatus in the afternoon. 
Look lively, lads, for we won’t do any work 
around here after dark.” 

“ I’d like to go ashore and explore, Grap,” 
suggested Latimer. “ I don’t need any dinner. 
You leave me here and pick me up when you 
come back.” 

The old wrecker turned on him. 

“ I’ll leave ye here, Lat,” he said, “ if ye’re so 
set makin’ comrades wi’ ghosts. But the 


138 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

Moray ’ll not take ye on board again. Likely 
ye wouldn’t see nothin’, but queer invisible 
things might follow ye. Anyway, the crew 
might think it.” 

“ But you don’t really believe all that stuff 
about ghosts, Grap ! ” protested the boy. 

“Ye think ye’re spunky! ” the old wrecker re- 
plied, “ jest because ye’re willing to risk some- 
thing no one else wants to do. That isn’t spunk, 
Lat, that’s jest plain foolishness! Courage con- 
sists in doin’ the things that have to be done, no 
matter what the risk. But takin’ risks for the 
sake o’ showin’ off is a sign of a weak head. 

“ I can’t prove that there are ghosts on yon- 
der island, ye’re right there. But ye can’t prove, 
neither, that there aren’t any. A good sailor- 
man keeps as far away from breakers as he can, 
an’ there’s no man o’ the Moray that’s goin’ 
ashore to run the risk o’ beckonin’ dead men 
aboard, if I can help it. I want no ghosts for 
shipmates ! ” 


CHAPTER VI 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 

The instant they got back to the Moray, 
there being still half an hour before dinner time, 
Captain Jerry Voley set the crew at work get- 
ting out the diving dresses, and testing with 
minute care every joint of the suits, every foot 
of the hose and every detail of the pumps. He 
trusted no one but himself to supervise this, and 
the divers of the Moray, when they went over 
the side, knew that they could depend upon 
every detail. 

With all such matters, the “ Admiral ” had 
nothing to do. A past master in the art of 
wrecking in its older forms, he left his son to 
handle all the details of modern salvage. 

“ How long can a diver stay under water, 
just diving naturally? ” queried Latimer, as he 
stood beside his father, watching the prepara- 
tion of the diving outfits. He had only been 
down once or twice, and then only in shallow 
waters, for Captain Voley understood the dan- 
139 


140 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


ger which men encounter when working with 
compressed air. 

“ In general, about half a minute,” the cap- 
tain of the tug responded. “ Native pearl div- 
ers of the South Seas will stay a minute, and 
even longer. If the body be oiled and a piece of 
sponge, saturated with oil, be held in the mouth, 
it is not so difficult to stay under water two min- 
utes. The world’s record was made in a tank, 
in 1882, and was four minutes two and three- 
quarter seconds.” 

“ That wouldn’t be much use in modern sal- 
vage, would it? ” commented the boy. 

“ A diver can do a lot in two minutes,” the 
salver answered. “ With a water slate, he can 
make a rapid sketch of the way a vessel lies and 
the location and size of the hole which sank her, 
for example. Of course, men can’t work as long 
or as steadily without diving dresses, but, at a 
pinch, I think I could do about everything with 
natural divers that I can do now, if the wreck 
weren’t too deep down. It would take longer, 
of course, and as time is often of prime conse- 
quence in salvage operations, such a delay would 
be a handicap.” 

“ It takes us, nowadays, to handle things 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


141 


properly,” boasted Latimer, with the pride of 
youth in the achievements of his own generation. 
“ Look at the modern diving dress ! ” 

The captain of the Moray slewed half round 
and looked at his son with sharp reproof. 

“ I don’t like that know-it-all air you put on 
sometimes, Latimer,” he rebuked, sternly. 
“ You’re so confoundedly cocksure about every- 
thing, and you always seem to think that be- 
cause a thing is new, it must be good ! That idea 
is going to get you into trouble, some day. As 
a matter of fact, diving apparatus isn’t new at 
all. Even the ancients knew about it.” 

“Did they, Dad?” queried Latimer, in a 
humbler tone. “ I didn’t know.” 

“ Yes, they did,” the salver replied emphat- 
ically, and in a nettled tone. “ The Ancient 
Greeks used apparatus. Aristotle mentions 
both the diving bell and the diving dress. He 
says that, in his time, divers had tubes leading 
from the air to a case around their heads, by 
which they could draw down air to breathe, and 
also that some of them used a metal vessel which 
was sunk in the water so that the divers could 
get air from it. 

“ Not only that, but Thucydides tells of 


142 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


divers who were able to stay under water long 
enough to build sharp-pointed artificial reefs be- 
low the sea in the entrances to their harbors on 
which enemy vessels would strike and be sunk. 
It seems queer to us, nowadays, but in the siege 
of Syracuse, there was actually under-water 
fighting. Divers were sent down by the Greeks 
to saw away the submarine barriers, and these 
met the divers of the Syracusans. Each tried to 
cut the air-hose of the others, and history tells 
that the Greek divers triumphed.” 

“As long ago as that!” ejaculated Latimer, 
astonished. “ When was that, Dad? ” 

“ In 415 b. c., over two thousand years ago. 
So you see, Son, wreckers and salvers were busy, 
then. The same tactics were employed when 
Alexander the Great besieged Tyre nearly a 
century later, and diving bells had been suffi- 
ciently developed for Alexander himself to go 
down in a machine which was called a ‘ colym- 
pha 5 which, it is on record, c kept a man dry be- 
neath the water, while allowing him air and 
light.’ You don’t call that modern, do you? ” 

“ But that wasn’t like a modern diving dress, 
anyway,” protested the boy, eager to defend 
himself. “ And that was only for war ! ” 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


148 


“ There you’re wrong again,” his father an- 
swered. “ The ancient island and city of 
Rhodes, which was founded even before Ancient 
Greece, had special laws regarding divers who 
went down into the sea to gather treasure from 
sunken vessels. If the wreck were only twelve 
feet below the surface, the diver got one-third 
of all the treasure found, if it were twenty-four 
feet down, he got a half, if it were forty-eight 
feet down, he received two-thirds. There was 
a regular guild of deep-sea divers at Rhodes, 
and Rhodian divers and their ‘ instruments ’ — 
whatever they may have been — were sent all 
over the Mediterranean. 

“ If you come down to mediaeval times,” the 
salver continued, “ one of the earliest pictures 
ever printed was a wood-cut in Vegetius’ ‘ Art 
of War ’ showing a diver walking about on the 
bed of a river, with a double tube leading from 
a cap fastened about his mouth, to a sort of 
floating mouth on the surface of the river, one 
tube to breathe in by, the other for the expelled 
air. 

“ Roger Bacon, the famous English scientist, 
in the thirteenth century, pointed out that any 
large vessel, if it were lowered into the water, 


144 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


mouth down, and kept exactly level, would re- 
tain the air. Such a vessel on the rim of which 
three legs were fixed, like a tripod, was lowered 
to the bottom of a river. Natural divers then 
went down, worked for a minute, swam to the 
inverted pot, filled their, lungs with' fresh air 
again, and so went on working. 

“ Soon after the defeat of the Spanish Ar- 
mada, when the rich galleons had been scattered 
by storm all around the coasts of Scotland and 
Ireland, there was a great demand for treasure 
divers. Usually, however, the ships lay in deep 
water. One clever fellow, named Colquhoun, 
was employed in the Bay of Tobermory, in the 
north of Scotland, to try to find the treasure 
from the main treasure ship of the Armada, 
which was sunk in those waters. Colquhoun 
knew nothing of the diving-bell, but he rigged 
up a bellows of leather, and a long leather pipe, 
the end of which he took in his mouth. With 
this device he was able to stay below the water 
as much as ten minutes, and got up some small 
quantity of gold. 

“ In 1715, a Devonshire diver, named John 
Lethbridge, who was also engaged in hunting 
for treasure from one of the ships of the Spanish 


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Courtesy of Cassell and Co. 

The Treasure- Ship of the Spanish Armada striking on the 
Rocks with $6,000,000 in Gold in her Money Chests. 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


145 


Armada, invented a diving dress with flexible 
sleeves. The force-pump had not been devel- 
oped with sufficient perfection, and it was too 
much work to draw the air down with the lungs. 
So other Devonshire divers attached Leth- 
bridge’s dress to a strong leather water-tight 
case, holding about half a hogshead of air, the 
supply being ample for about a quarter of an 
hour. 

“ Just five years later, Latimer, the first 
practical diving-bell of modern pattern was 
made. It was invented by Dr. Edmund Hal- 
ley, Secretary of the Royal Society, in England. 
It was made of wood, covered with lead, was 
round in shape, three feet across at the top and 
five feet across at the bottom. There was a 
window in the top to let in the light. It could 
be suspended at any depth required. 

“ As the force-pump was not yet in use, bar- 
rels were used to provide the supply of fresh 
air. Two barrels always were used, so that one 
could be on its way to the top for refilling, while 
the air from the other barrel was being em- 
ployed. The barrels, too, were weighted with 
lead. In each barrel there was a hole at the top 
and the bottom, and to the hole in the top was 


146 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


fastened a leather tube so weighted that it would 
fall below the level of the bottom of the barrel, 
so that no air could escape. When, however, 
the diver in the bell picked up the end of the 
tube which led to the lower hole, the water flow- 
ing into the lower hole forced the air out of the 
barrel into the diving bell. 

“ Impure air in the bell was let out through 
a tap, from time to time, as was required, and, 
by sending down the barrels in quick succession, 
one after another, the air was kept in so pure 
a condition that five persons remained in the 
bell, at a depth of nine fathoms, for more than 
an hour and a half at the time. 

“ Two years later, Halley further improved 
this bell by devising a metal and glass helmet 
with a long pipe leading to the bell. By using 
this, a diver was able to get out of the bell and 
walk on the bottom of the sea with comfort, re- 
turning to the bell, from time to time.” 

By this time, dinner was called, but Captain 
Jerry, having started on one of his favorite sub- 
jects, could not be stopped, and talked inces- 
santly all through the meal. 

“ Halley’s Diving Bell,” he continued, wav- 
ing his fork for emphasis, “ was improved by 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 147 


Spalding, of Edinburgh. The Spalding bell 
was not made heavy, like the Halley bell, but 
was divided into two water-tight compartments. 
When the upper compartment was full of 
water, the bell would sink. When the divers in 
the lower compartment wanted to rise, they al- 
lowed the air from the lower part to escape into 
the upper. This expelled the water and thus 
the divers were able to rise or sink at will. This 
freedom of movement was an important im- 
provement for use when working on vessels 
which lay upright on the sea bottom. 

“ The next big step onward, though, was 
taken by John Smeaton, in 1791. Instead of 
the usual bell-shaped or conical tub of wood, 
covered with lead, he sank a heavy cast-iron 
chest. But — and this was the main point of his 
invention — the divers did not need to trouble 
themselves all the time about the supply of 
fresh air. That was provided for them by a 
force-pump which was worked from a boat on 
the water’s surface. This divided the respon- 
sibility and greatly advanced the diver’s effi- 
ciency. Small improvements have been made 
since that time, but Smeaton’s general principle 
remains unchanged.” 


148 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ And I suppose,” hazarded Latimer, “ that 
the modern diving dress was a compound of 
Lethbridge’s idea of the helmet and Smeaton’s 
idea of the force-pump.” 

“ Exactly,” agreed the salver. “ And there 
was not long to wait. Smeaton’s Bell had been 
first used in 1791, and in 1798, Kleingert, of 
Breslau, invented the first modern diving dress. 
It was shaped something like an egg and was 
made of metal, with a single window. It only 
went down as far as the diver’s hips, where it 
was fastened with a tight rubber bandage di- 
rectly to the diver’s skin. There were short 
water-tight sleeves through which the arms were 
thrust, though this always proved one of the 
weak points of the dress. Weights were sus- 
pended around the waist, making the diver just 
a trifle heavier than the water. By working a 
small piston in the lower part of the dress, which 
enabled him to admit a greater quantity of air, 
the diver could rise slowly to the surface. 

“ Unfortunately, the force-pump was not suf- 
ficiently perfected to work satisfactorily, and 
Kleingert had to go back to the old system of 
Vegetius, letting the diver breathe directly by a 
long pipe to the outer air. This prevented any 


The First Diving Bell ( 1717 ). The First Diving Dress ( 1797 ). 

Halley’s invention. A, escape valve ; B , breathing tube; Klein gert’s invention. A , air tube from the surface; 

C, inverted air cap; 1), barrel of air; E, valve; B , weights to keep tube low ; C, escape valve. 

b\ air pipe. 





A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


149 


deep-water work. So, in those days, the diving 
dress was used only for shallow-water opera- 
tions, and the diving-bell for deep water. 

“ Then came along, twenty years later, the 
invention of Siebe, of Hamburg. He devised a 
helmet and shoulder-piece for divers and em- 
ployed the force-pump. This worked fairly 
well, but had its dangers. One of the worst of 
these was that the diver dared not stoop and was 
in peril if he stumbled, for, being an ‘ open 
dress,’ the water would fill it at once. Siebe de- 
voted his entire life to the improvement of the 
diving dress and to the perfection of the force- 
pump. The up-to-date diver’s outfit, as we have 
it to-day, is merely a modification of Siebe’s 
dress of a century ago.” 

“ What’s the greatest depth ever reached in a 
modern diving dress, Dad? ” asked Latimer. 

“ Well,” said the captain of the Moray 
thoughtfully, “ with the ordinary diving dress, 
I guess the greatest depth ever reached was 
made by a diver called Hooper, in Pichidanque 
Bay in South America. He made seven de- 
scents to the wreck of the Cap Horn , at a depth 
of thirty-three and one-half fathoms (two hun- 
dred and one feet) and, on one of these descents, 


150 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


he remained down for forty-two minutes. That 
was a marvellous record because the pressure at 
that depth is over eighty-four pounds to the 
square inch. 

“ Another very famous case was that of a 
Spanish diver, named Erostarbe, who, from a 
depth of one hundred and eighty-two feet, recov- 
ered nine thousand pounds sterling ($45,000) 
in silver from the wreck of the steamer Skyro , 
south of Cape Finisterre. An even larger sum, 
seventy thousand pounds in gold ($350,000), 
was brought up by an English diver named 
Lambert, from the wreck of the Spanish mail 
steamer Alphonso XIII, which was sunk in one 
hundred and sixty-two feet of water off the Ca- 
nary Islands. But such depths as these are un- 
usual. Generally, one hundred and fifty feet is 
reckoned as about the maximum at which sal- 
vage operations can be done. Even at thirty feet 
where the pressure is a trifle less than half a 
pound to the square inch, this means a pressure 
of sixteen tons on the body. At one hundred and 
fifty feet, allowing for increased ratio, the pres- 
sure would be considerably over one hundred 
tons. You see why one hundred and fifty feet 
is nearly the limit.” 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


151 


“Why!” exclaimed Latimer in surprise, “I 
thought, nowadays, men could go down ever so 
much farther than that ! ” 

“ Some of the deep-sea divers of the United 
States Navy have made better records,” the cap- 
tain of the Moray answered, “ but that has been 
with an entirely different type of diving dress. 
These divers carry down with them small tanks 
of highly compressed air, which they can let out, 
little by little. 

“ The most remarkable case was the recovery 
of the submarine ‘ F. 4 ’ from three hundred and 
six feet of water off Honolulu. The Navy had 
two large corps of divers, and only those in the 
most perfect condition of health were allowed to 
descend, and they only for a few minutes each. 
Down below, they did little but direct the work 
done from the surface. 

“ Of course, if modern inventors perfect 
the new 4 armored diving suits,’ there’s no say- 
ing how far a man may be able to go down.” 

“ Armored suits, Son Jerry!” put in the 
“ Admiral.” “ I never heard of ’em before. 
What are they? ” 

“I’ve never seen one, myself, Father,” the 
salver replied. “ They’re quite new. But I’ve 


152 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


seen plenty of descriptions and pictures of them. 
First of all, they’re different from the regular 
diving dresses because they’re made of armor 
steel, the strongest and the toughest known, so 
made as to be able to resist an enormous pres- 
sure. They’re all braced inside. They’re not a 
dress, really, they’re a sort of movable frame. 
Of course, being so heavy, a man can’t move his 
arms or legs in them at all, either in the water or 
out. 

44 The diver has to be hoisted up with a der- 
rick, like a piece of freight, and lowered into the 
water. He can’t walk, even on the bottom, by 
the strength of his leg muscles, but, inside the 
armor, there are levers, and, by using these, he 
can shove first one foot forward and then the 
other, so that, in a shuffling sort of way, he can 
get along. It’s the same way with the arms. 
They’re worked by levers from inside, too. 
With a good deal of trouble, a diver in an 
4 armored suit ’ might be able to put a chain un- 
der a hull or some simple act like that. He 
could never move around, the way ordinary div- 
ers can.” 

44 And air, Dad? How does he get air? ” 

44 From compressed air tanks which he takes 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


153 


down with him,” was the reply. “ Oh, the ar- 
mored devices can be made to work. But 
they’re very costly, heavy to handle and a bit 
dangerous. I don’t think they’ll be of much use 
except for really big salvage operations, such as 
trying to get the Lusitania up from the bottom 
of the sea, or something like that. Even so, the 
range of armored suits is limited, for, after you 
get down deep enough, even if the armored 
frame is strong enough to resist the enormous 
pressure, the weight of the water is so terrific 
that it pinches the joints of the arms and legs 
and makes them immovable. So far, inventors 
haven’t been able to succeed in combining flexi- 
bility with a resistance to hundreds of tons of 
pressure.” 

“ Do ye think, Son Jerry, that wrecks as deep 
down as the Lusitania can ever be recovered? ” 

“ Not with any devices we have now, Father, 
no. The Lusitania lies in eighty-two fathoms of 
water (nearly five hundred feet), and, at that 
depth, even an armored suit becomes unmanage- 
able.” 

“How about submarines, Dad?” queried 
Latimer. 

“ None that we have now would be of any use 


154 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


for such depths,” the captain replied. “ A sub- 
marine cannot go down deep in the water, even 
what they call the double-skin type. During the 
World War, when every nation was trying to 
outstrip the other in making submarines which 
would be able to escape depth bombs, two hun- 
dred feet was considered the extreme depth limit 
of safety in salt water. In general practice, 
safety appliances to keep a submarine from go- 
ing down too far are set at between eighty and 
one hundred feet. I’m not saying that, with the 
knowledge of submarines that we have now, un- 
der-sea craft couldn’t be built strong enough to 
go down five hundred feet. I think they could. 
But they’d be terribly expensive. One at a hun- 
dred thousand pounds ($500,000) would be 
cheap. 

“ No, I think the Moray will try to get 
along without armored suits and specially built 
wreck-searching submarines. I’m willing 
enough to go ahead with the diving dress that an 
ordinary man can handle in an ordinary way, 
and I’ll pick my wrecks in shallow water, when I 
can.” 

The “ Admiral ” grunted approval, but Lati- 
mer, as he followed his father out on the tug’s 




Courtesy of Cassell and Co. 

“Haul Up! Haul Up! A Shark!” 

A diver imperilled while inspecting a sunken cattle-sliip, the drowned 
animals on board having attracted finny monsters of prey 
from far and near. 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


155 


deck, thought of the great ships lying in the 
ocean depths and longed to be at work, raising 
them. 

The Moray had brought with her from Bimi- 
nis her big specially built boat which was used 
for diving operations. This was fitted up with 
powerful triple-cylinder force-pumps and div- 
ing apparatus. She carried a small motor and 
was ballasted deep, so that a diver, in his heavy 
suit, could climb over the side of the boat with- 
out making her turn turtle. 

Captain Voley, the assistant engineer and the 
two divers went in that boat, together with 
Tom, the coxswain, and one other of the most 
trusted members of the crew. These two men 
were to handle the force-pumps, where absolute 
regularity and attention might mean life or 
death to the diver. 

Latimer was with Mark Hoveller and six of 
the Moray's crew, in the other boat. Their duty 
was merely to stand by in case of need, and, if 
there was any salvage to be done, to handle the 
cargo. A very few minutes brought them to the 
treasure hulk, the location immediately picked 
out by the floating buoy. 

The two negro divers, experts in their profes- 


156 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


sion, began to get into their cumbrous suits. 
These were made of two layers of a specially pre- 
pared thin canvas, with a layer of pure rubber 
between. They covered the whole body, from 
the feet to the neck, like the sleeping suits that 
little children wear. They were fitted around 
the neck and shoulders with vulcanized rubber 
collar-plates, or bands, in which were screw- 
holes corresponding to similar screw-holes in the 
combined helmet and breastplate. The sleeves 
were fitted with special rubber fastenings on the 
wrists, leaving the hands free. As one of the 
negro divers had said to Latimer, laughingly, the 
first time the boy had seen him don the dress: 

“ Yo’ see, Mas’er Latimer, my skin’s done 
water-tight! ” 

The boots used by the divers of the Moray 
had leather uppers, beechwood inner-soles and 
outer soles of thick lead, fastened to the wood 
by copper rivets. Each boot weighed about six- 
teen pounds, and they were fastened to the in- 
step and calf by heavy leather straps and buc- 
kles. In addition to this weight, each of the 
divers fastened to his back and to his chest two 
weights of forty pounds each. These two 
weights and the boots, one hundred and twelve 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 157 

pounds in all, kept the divers solid on their 
feet. 

The helmets and breastplates, however, were 
the most important parts of the outfits. These 
are always made of copper, with gun-metal 
valves. The most important is the inlet valve, 
to which the air-pipe is connected. As the air 
comes in, it passes over three conduits above the 
front and each of the side windows. The diver, 
by this method, breathes the fresh air the mo- 
ment it enters the helmet and, at the same time, 
this device prevents the condensation of the 
diver’s breath on the glass windows and keeps 
them clear. 

The next most important valve is the outlet 
valve, to get rid of the surplus air. This is 
within the diver’s control, and according to the 
degree that he tightens or loosens it, so he will 
have more or less air, since the supply coming 
to him by the inlet valve from the force-pump 
above, is constant. Moreover, the outlet valve 
is the means whereby he can rise in the water, or 
sink at will. Those who have seen a diver going 
into the water will have noticed that there is a 
constant stream of bubbles pouring from the top 
of his helmet. That is because the outlet valve 


158 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

is well open, and, since the air is not staying in 
the dress, he sinks. When he reaches the bot- 
tom, however, or the depth to which he wishes to 
go, the diver begins, little by little, to screw 
tighter this valve, until less and less air escapes. 
Thus, according to the amount of air he 
breathes, and to his depth in the water, the diver 
can secure for himself precisely the quantity of 
air he needs. 

There are also, on the helmet, two metal eyes. 
To one of these the air-pipe is secured, a few 
inches above its junction at the valve, so that, as 
the diver moves in this direction or that, there 
shall be no free motion at the inlet valve, which 
might weaken it and cause a leak. The other 
eye is for a strong hemp life-line, a jerk on 
which will cause the diver to be hauled up to the 
surface quickly in case of danger, such as might 
arise from a rip in the diving dress made by a 
sharp rock or a rusty spike in a piece of wreck- 
age. Or, the danger might be an attack by a 
shark or a sword-fish. In the most modern 
types of helmet there is also a connection for an 
under-sea telephone, but these the divers on the 
Moray did not possess. The glass windows at 
the side of the helmet are fixed, that on the front 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


159 


is either screwed in or works on a hinged joint 
like a ship’s scuttle. 

The breastplate, which is an integral part of 
the helmet, is fitted around its lower edge with 
metal bands and screws which correspond ex- 
actly to the screw-holes in the vulcanized rub- 
ber collar of the dress. In some styles, the 
water-tight joint is made by a slight double in- 
terlocking turn on the breastplate. All this is 
fitted on the diver, while the front glass remains 
open. This latter is not closed until the air- 
pipe is adjusted and the force-pumps have 
begun. 

The diver’s air-pipe is made of alternate lay- 
ers of specially treated canvas and rubber with 
a steel spiral wire embedded. A heavy sheath- 
knife and kit of tools are carried at the belt, and, 
often, a submarine electric flash-lamp. 

The “ self-contained ” diving dress is the 
same as the former in all respects except for the 
question of air. In place of the air-tube, lead- 
ing to the surface, the diver carries a knapsack 
consisting of a steel cylinder containing oxygen 
compressed to a pressure of one hundred and 
twenty atmospheres (about eighteen hundred 
pounds to the square inch), and some lined 


160 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


chambers containing either caustic soda or 
caustic potash. Helmet, cylinder, and cham- 
bers are all connected by protected tubes. 
The breath exhaled by the diver passes through 
a valve into the chambers of caustic which ab- 
sorb the carbonic acid gas, and the air can thus 
be used over and over again with replenishment 
from the oxygen in the steel cylinder. This self- 
contained dress has the advantage of rendering a 
diver free from the encumbrance of the long 
air-tube overhead, but the air is not so good and 
divers with this apparatus are apt to suffer from 
terrible headaches. 

At last the long preparations were made. 
The divers were ready. The force-pumps 
began their operations of pumping air into the 
dresses. The glass front windows were closed 
tightly and the air began to hiss out through the 
valve at the top. First one diver, then the other, 
descended over the side of the pumping boat and 
sank to the bottom. Latimer, in the other boat, 
floated overhead, watching their movements 
through the water-glass. He could see them as 
clearly as though there were no water between. 
By an optical illusion, they seemed to be only a 
few inches below the surface. 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


161 


The sea-bottom, as customary in coral forma- 
tions in the West Indies, was of white-yellow 
sand, with, here and there, large clumps of 
brain-coral, on and around which grew a wealth 
of golden seaweeds, tall black rods and purple 
sea-fans. Sea-anemones of vivid and delicate 
shades waved their tentacles in the limpid water. 
Scarlet and green sponges lay on the bottom, 
interspersed with fantastic-spined sea-urchins. 

Through this brilliant sea-garden swam the 
gorgeous scarlet-and-blue parrot-wrasses, the 
peacock-eyed butterfly-fishes, the white-and- 
gold angel-fishes, the orange-striped sergeant- 
majors, the dainty four-eyes looking like great 
night moths of the water, ruddy squirrel-fishes 
and white and canary-colored grunts innumer- 
able. The green and the spotted morays coiled 
their eel-like lengths in cavities of the coral, or 
flashed forth after prey. The black grouper, 
ever ready to change color, drifted like a dim 
shadow over the sand. The fishing-fish, with 
wide-open jaws, set its crimson-hued body be- 
side a scarlet sponge and waited for small fish 
to strike at the feeler-like extension from the 
head dangling like a baited line before the hungry 
mouth. The smaller octopus, in a fit of indus- 


162 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


try, shot forth from the hole where it lurked and 
spread its repulsive tentacles over the unwary 
crab. 

Marvellous are the sea-gardens of the coral 
reefs, which know no season, but blaze with 
color and life all the year around. The scene 
was not new to Latimer. He had seen it many 
a hundred times before, but he never tired of 
it. 

Now, however, he was watching the divers. 

Strange things were happening below the 
water ! 

The first diver, easily distinguished from his 
comrade because his helmet was of tinned cop- 
per and shone silver-like, while the other’s had 
a copper sheen, hurried — so far as walking with 
leaden feet can be called hurrying — and was the 
first to reach the treasure hulk. Latimer ex- 
pected to see him climb laboriously on to the 
deck of the sunken ship, but, instead, he turned 
and faced his slowly advancing companion. 

No sooner had the latter come within reach 
than Tin Helmet raised his arm and gave his 
comrade a sudden push. 

Latimer was startled, for, though He knew 
how playful the negroes were together, he was 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 163 

aware how dangerous it is to play pranks in the 
water. 

The diver in the copper helmet staggered 
back under the push, but did not lose his bal- 
ance. He came forward again, but, evidently 
not desirous of any more jokes of that sort, 
reached the sunken hulk a little distance from 
his fellow. 

Latimer, tilting his water-glass, could follow 
the movements of both men. 

No sooner had the second diver touched the 
treasure ship, however, than he, too, turned and 
came forward. Tin Helmet and Copper Hel- 
met faced each other in the depth. 

Latimer knew that divers who had no tele- 
phonic communication with each other under 
water, sometimes conversed by signs, and he 
watched eagerly to see what the gestures might 
signify. 

Then, with a motion which seemed to be in- 
tended to be swift, but which was enforcedly 
slow and cumbrous because of the stiff diving 
dress and the friction of the water, Tin Helmet 
raised his hand and made a clutch as though he 
would seize his comrade’s air-tube. 

Surely this was a curious sort of play! 


164 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

Again Copper Helmet stepped back. He 
was near enough to his companion to be able to 
see his face through the glass window of the 
helmet and to be able to judge of the purpose 
of his acts. In his turn, he squatted on the sea 
floor and broke off a small coral-growth which 
he poised and tried to throw. 

Naturally, with the restraint of the diving 
dress impeding him and because of the diffi- 
culty of throwing anything through the water, 
the heavy coral went forward but a few inches, 
then dropped and sank to the bottom. 

Both men came closer and Copper Helmet, 
negro fashion, tried to butt at his companion 
with his heavy diver’s helmet, but drew back 
as the other again tried to clutch at the air- 
tube. 

The movements, seen from above, were 
strange and incomprehensible, for the slow 
wavings of the arms in the water had all the 
queer unrealism which the ultra-rapid camera 
gives. But when Tin Helmet, with delibera- 
tion, approached closer to his comrade, drew his 
big knife and stabbed forward, Latimer sud- 
denly realized that he was watching a duel be- 
neath the sea. 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 165 

“They’re fighting! They’re fighting!” he 
cried. 

At that instant, Copper Helmet, putting his 
hand to the side of his head-piece, tightened the 
escape valve. At once his dress filled with air 
and he began to rise. Just as he was at the 
height of his comrade’s head, he gave a vicious 
kick with his leaden-soled boot, full in the front 
window glass of his comrade’s helmet. 

Latimer leaped to his feet in wild excitement, 
almost upsetting the boat. 

“Haul up, Tom! Haul quick!” he yelled. 
“ You, Sam, haul, too! ” 

The coxswain did not hesitate a second. 
From the tones of the boy’s voice he realized 
that some grave danger was menacing his com- 
rades. Dropping the pump rod, he leaped to 
the life-lines and with one or two hand-over- 
hand movements, hauled the diver with the 
tinned helmet up from the bottom of the sea. 

His front glass was cracked clear across, but 
it was not smashed. 

A second later, Copper Helmet was hauled 
to the surface also. 

Both men climbed aboard the pumping boat, 
and busy fingers unclamped the windows. 


166 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

The instant they were open, both the divers 
began to shout madly, and would have launched 
themselves at each other, but for the weight of 
the heavy boots on their feet. 

Captain Jerry Voley stepped between them, 
and ordered the helmets removed. 

“ Now, Caesar,” he said, “ you’re level-headed 
enough generally! What’s all the row about? ” 

The diver, a man nearly forty years of age, 
and known as one of the best experts on the 
Bahamas, passed his hand across his forehead 
and his eyes, as if dazed. 

“ I — I dunno, sah! ” he answered lamely. 

“ Have you had any trouble with Job, here? ” 

“I, sah? No, sah!” 

“ Latimer says he saw you strike at him.” 

“ Yes, sah, I sho’ done struck at him.” 

“ Why? ” 

“ I — I dunno, sah. I’d jes’ put mah hand on 
the wreck when somethin’ come an’ whispered in 
mah ear: 

“ ‘ Kill him, Caesar! Kill him!’ An’ then, 
sah, fust thing I know, we was a-fightin’! An’ I 
dunno what for.” 

The captain of the Moray turned to the other 
diver. 



Courtesy of Cassell and Co. 


A Fight under the Sea. 

Treachery did not end with the war; English divers have found foreign 
spies trying to prevent the salvage of vessels they were paid to save. 



Courtesy of Merritt & Chapman Wrecking Co. 

Diver’s Dress of Modern Pattern as used by Big Salvage 
Companies Today. 



A DUEL IN THE DEEP 167 

“ And what’s your story, Job? ” 

The second diver, a younger man, was evi- 
dently still in the clutch of anger. 

“ He jes’ set out to kill me,” he panted, “ an’ 
I was a-goin’ to get him ! ” 

“ Did you want to kill him, too? ” 

“ Yes, sah! ” The tone was emphatic. 

“ Have you had any trouble with Csesar? ” 

“ No, sah,” the second diver answered, 
“ nothin’ at all. Me an’ him’s always been good 
friends.” 

“And when did you first have this feeling that 
you wanted to kill your friend? ” 

The negro thought a minute. . 

“ Seems to me, sah,” he said, “ it was like 
Csesar says, jes’ when I touched that boat.” 
Then an explanation flashed across him. “ She’s 
hoodooed! Dat ol’ wreck’s done* hoodooed! 
She’s done got a pirate witch-spell on her! Yes, 
sah, dat’s what it is ! ” 

Captain Jerry shrugged his shoulders. 

“You wouldn’t go down again, I suppose?” 
“ Me, sah? ” He shuffled his leaden-booted 
feet an inch or two backwards. “ Not for a 
thousand pounds, sah ! ” 

“ How about you, Csesar? ” 


168 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


The expert shook his head. 

“ Yo’ know how ’tis, sah,” he answered. “ I’ve 
been with the ‘Admiral ’ an’ yo’, sah, ever sence 
I was big enough to pull on a rope, an’ if yo’ 
says to me, 4 Caesar, go down again!’ I’ll go. 
But I’d sooner yo’ didn’t ask me, sah.” 

The captain of the Moray , while he had the 
respect of his men, was given none of the half- 
fearful admiration and whole-souled loyalty 
which was readily accorded to the “Admiral,” 
and he was a clever enough man to know where 
his authority halted. 

In this dilemma, for he saw it to be one, Lati- 
mer spoke up. 

“Let me go, Dad!” he suggested. “Four 
fathoms is shallow enough. You know, I went 
down nine fathoms once. If there’s what Job 
calls a 4 pirate witch-spell ’ on the old hulk, that 
won’t hurt me. I’m proof against spells.” 

Captain Jerry turned a thoughtful look on his 
son. 

“Ay,” he agreed, “ it isn’t deep enough to do 
you any harm, and you’re not likely to get scared 
easily. Now that we’re here, it would be foolish 
to go away without at least finding out what is 
in the hulk. Besides, I gave my word to Mark 


A DUEL IN THE DEEP 


169 


Hoveller there that we’d do our best to get the 
stuff. Very well, Latimer, suppose you try! ” 

Job, grinning broadly in relief, commenced to 
divest himself of his diving dress, but Csesar made 
no move. 

“ Well, Caesar,” put in the captain, impa- 
tiently, “ are you going to stand there all day? ” 

“ No, sah, Cap’n Voley,” the old diver an- 
swered, “ but if Mas’er Latimer is goin’ down, 
I’m goin’ to put on mah helmet again. Yo’ can’t 
tell, sah, he might be needin’ help, an’ it ain’t 
never goin’ to be said that I stood by an’ saw a 
Voley goin’ into danger. I won’t go down, not 
onless I have to, but I’ll stand by. Yes, sah, I’ll 
stand ready.” 

The captain of the Moray nodded approval, 
and turned to supervise the enclosing of Latimer 
in the suit Job had worn. 

Ten minutes later he was ready. A last word 
to his father, and then the pumps were started, 
the window was closed and Latimer slipped over 
the side to visit the treasure hulk on which there 
lay the curse of a “ pirate witch-spell.” 


CHAPTER VII 


SPANISH TREASURE 

In spite of his freedom from superstition, 
Latimer could not repress a feeling of anxiety 
as he lowered himself in the water. It was one 
thing to scoff at sea phantoms and haunted hulks, 
when standing on a ship’s deck; it was another 
thing entirely to descend into the depths of the 
sea to face them. 

Half-way to the treasure hulk, a feebleness of 
the knees assailed the lad. He had plenty of 
courage, but he had imagination, too. His nerves 
began to play tricks with him. The dark shape 
of a black grouper lumbering through the water 
startled him. The boy had not had much ex- 
perience in diving, and his fear, however much he 
kept it down, brought his breath short and fast. 

When only a few feet from the hulk, he be- 
gan to feel panicky. The negro’s words recurred 
to him, and, in his mind’s eye, he saw again the 
two divers savagely trying to grapple each other. 
He had to struggle with himself not to turn 
coward and retreat. 


170 


SPANISH TREASURE 


171 


The fear of ridicule, however, especially from 
the negro members of the crew, proved an even 
more potent force than the blind terror of the 
unknown. With a desperate effort, Latimer 
screwed himself together, stumbled rather than 
walked to the sunken hulk and deliberately 
placed his hand upon the wood. 

The moment he touched the wood, a sudden 
feeling of atrocious rage possessed him. The im- 
pulse to destroy clutched at his reason. Had 
there been a comrade near, scarcely could he have 
combated the desire to slay. Being alone, the 
impulse was foiled. It was quickly succeeded by 
an equally violent urge to suicide, so strong that, 
had the boy already drawn his large sheath-knife, 
he might have turned it upon himself in that in- 
stant of mania. 

The idea of suicide, however, was in itself so 
alien to the boy’s nature that there was an in- 
stinctive revulsion, so strong as to be almost a 
shock. This shock cleared his brain, and, like a 
flash, Latimer realized that he was himself fall- 
ing a victim to the “pirate witch-spell” of which 
the negro divers had spoken. As the words oc- 
curred to his mind, despite the tumult of his 
feelings, the boy laughed. The gust of laughter 


172 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


blew away the morbidity from his brain, not to. 
return. 

Although Latimer did not realize it, “ haunt- 
ings ” are almost always of this character, and 
can generally be exorcised thus. One is afraid 
of seeing a ghost, startled into terror if a ghost 
should appear, but speedily calmed if the ghost 
remains visible for several minutes. A fright 
never lasts long — though its effects may do so — 
and unreasoned terror is almost always followed 
by a reaction to contempt. 

The boy, under the stress of this latter feeling, 
thumped jocosely on the timbers of the sunken 
hulk, and dared the ghosts of the pirates to come 
out. 

Nothing moved. 

The sun shone brightly through the clear 
water, casting that gray-green light which all 
divers know, and, as Latimer looked around him 
at the vivid color and vitality of the sea-garden, 
his spirits rose again. After all, he had faced 
the “ spell,” whatever it was, and got the better 
of it. He could continue his under-water ex- 
ploration, now, with a quiet mind. 

Slightly closing the escape cock in his diving 
dress, and remembering his father’s parting in- 


SPANISH TREASURE 


173 


structions to do so slowly, Latimer allowed his 
diving dress to inflate just enough to lift him 
from the bottom, that he might rise the nine or 
ten feet necessary to reach the deck of the hulk. 
On finding himself near the rail, he loosened the 
escape valve again to deflate the dress and 
give him weight, and descended on the hulk’s 
deck. 

The wood was slimy and, since the deck listed 
a good deal to starboard, difficult to walk on. 
Evidently the hulk had been a two-masted vessel 
of some kind, probably a schooner. The cook’s 
galley was the only deck-house, showing that 
the fo’c’s’le and the cabins must be below. 

One of the doors of the galley was open, and 
Latimer looked in. Nothing was to be seen but 
a dilapidated stove, partly eaten up by rust and 
fallen in. A copper pot was hanging on the 
wall. A china plate, covered with scum, lay on 
a locker, the wood of which was so rotten that 
when Latimer drew his large sheath-knife and 
struck it, the knife went through the wood like 
paper. 

It was dark in the galley, for the gray-green 
light penetrated but little, but it was not too 
dark to reveal some sort of movement within. 


174 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


It might be an octopus! 

Latimer drew back as promptly as leaden feet 
allowed. He had no wish to encounter any of 
those repulsive tentacled creatures, which, even 
when small, constitute a minor peril to divers. 
The large ones, of course, are seriously danger- 
ous. The galley was best left alone. 

Walking forward, cautiously, Latimer noticed 
that the fo’c’s’le hatch was open, a matter of little 
consequence, for the boy knew that there was no 
likelihood of the treasure being there. It might 
be in the hold. More probably, it would be 
stored in the cabin. 

The main hatch was still covered with tar- 
paulin and stood out black. Sea-growths of 
every kind had taken root in the wreck, and 
Latimer’s leaden boots crushed barnacles and 
limpets at every step. But the tarred canvas had 
suited neither sea-plant nor sea-creature. The 
iron battens across the hatch had rusted away, 
but the red stain across the tarpaulin showed 
where they had been. 

Making his way aft, the boy came to the com- 
panionway to the cabin. Near the stern, the 
vessel looked as if she had been under water only 
a few years. The binnacle lamp, of brass, was 


SPANISH TREASURE 


175 


green with verdigris, but it still stood. The 
wheel, made of greenheart wood, showed slimy 
and that was all. The skylight of the cabin, with 
the glass windows encased in teak-wood, was 
whole and not a pane of glass was broken. The 
companionway, also of teak, and which had 
copper hinges and copper locks, was as firm as 
ever. Latimer’s knife made no impression on it. 
It would be necessary to break these doors open 
with a crowbar or an axe. 

Lacking both tools and experience, this brief 
examination was as much as the boy could do. 
He had made the preliminary survey, at least. It 
would need expert divers to handle the actual 
salvage. 

Letting himself over the hulk’s side, Latimer 
sank to the sandy ocean floor, walked to where 
the pumping boat floated overhead, inflated his 
dress and raised himself to the surface. He had 
not been down more than twenty minutes, and 
that in shallow water, but his head was thumping 
and his lungs were sore. It was a tremendous 
relief when the front window glass of his helmet 
was opened and he could breathe the outer air 
again. 

“Well?” said Captain Voley, as soon as the 


176 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


window had been unfastened. “ Did you see any 
ghosts? ” 

“ No, Dad,” answered the boy, “ but I felt 
them!” 

He turned to the negro diver, who was listen- 
ing anxiously. 

“ For just about a quarter of a minute, Caesar, 
I felt pretty nearly the way you said you felt. 
It was mighty queer! But, just as soon as I got 
hold of myself, and laughed at my own foolish- 
ness, the feeling passed away.” 

“ You’s a better man ’n I is, Mas’er Latimer,” 
the diver admitted. “ Me, I jest done got plumb 
mad an’ scared, clear through.” 

“ Then you really felt something, Lat? ” asked 
his father. 

“ Yes, Dad, I really did. I don’t wonder that 
the chaps got scared. I was wobbly myself, just 
for a minute or two. But I shook it off, all right. 
Anyway, I went all over the hulk,” and he pro- 
ceeded to describe in detail the condition of the 
sunken vessel as he had found it. He finished 
by saying, “ and it would be easy enough to break 
into the cabin, if a fellow had tools.” 

Then Latimer wheeled on the negro diver. 

“ Would you be afraid to come down again, 


SPANISH TREASURE 


177 


with me? ” he asked, adding, laughingly, “ I’ll 
promise not to try to kill you, when we get 
down there! And you know, Caesar,” he con- 
tinued, “ I’m not very handy under the water. 
I couldn’t handle tools, to save my life.” 

The diver shrank a little and his eyes blinked, 
but he answered sturdily enough. 

“ I don’ make no promises about stayin’ down,” 
he said. “ But ef yo’re willin’ to go down again, 
Mas’er Latimer, I’ll go, too. Yes, sah, I done 
does my best to be game.” 

“You’re the real stuff, Caesar!” declared the 
boy ; “ it takes a whole lot more spunk to do 
something you’re really afraid to do than it does 
not to be afraid.” 

The negro grinned appreciation, and motioned 
to the coxswain to close his helmet. Captain 
Yoley performed the same task for Latimer. 
The force-pumps were set at work, and the two 
descended into the water. 

Csesar hung back a little to let Latimer go 
ahead. On arriving at the sunken vessel, Lati- 
mer put his hand on the hulk. 

Again, but in less degree* the impulse of rage 
seized him. He held up the other hand to the 
negro, warning him back. Csesar stopped dead. 


178 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

and watched. In just a few seconds the feel- 
ing passed, and the boy beckoned Caesar on. 

As soon as the negro diver came close, Lati-* 
mer stepped forward. Motioning him to rest 
the crowbar against the hulk he took Caesar’s 
hand and gestured to him to place his other hand 
against the side of the hulk. 

The negro did so and, as his hand touched the 
wood, Latimer, watching his comrade’s face 
closely, saw it suddenly distorted with rage. 

The boy clenched tighter the hand he held. 

Savagely, Caesar tried to pull it away and free 
himself, but Latimer threw all the strength he 
possessed into that grip. 

Then, slowly, after a period which was prob- 
ably about two minutes, but which seemed to be 
as many hours, the boy saw the negro’s face 
relax. Little by little the look of anger passed 
into a daze of bewilderment, and then, to his 
intense relief, Latimer saw the white teeth of 
the negro as Caesar burst into a laugh, un- 
heard, of course, through the copper diving- 
helmet. 

The danger was over. Latimer let go the 
negro’s hand, his own fingers cramped from the 
nervous tension of the grip. 


SPANISH TREASURE 


179 


Caesar grinned again broadly to show that he 
was himself again, and picked up his crowbar. 

With a quick turn of the valve, the expert in- 
flated his dress, climbed on the wreck, adjusted 
his weight and walked aft on the wrecked hulk. 
Very different were his dexterous movements 
from those of Latimer! It was easy to see that 
the negro was quite at home at the bottom of the 
water. 

The companion hatchway, which Latimer had 
thought would be so difficult to open, flew apart 
at the second or third wrench of the crowbar. 
The boy would have hesitated before descending 
the companion steps, for fear of fouling his air- 
tube, but Caesar understood how to handle him- 
self and went down without fear. Latimer 
longed to follow, but he knew that an inexpert 
diver can sometimes be a great hindrance, and 
he stayed on the hulk’s deck. 

He waited there fully five minutes before the 
great copper head appeared above the com- 
panionway. Caesar came up to him and opened 
his hand. 

It was full of pieces of gold! 

Satisfied, both divers returned to the ocean 
floor, and ascended to the pumping boat. 


180 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“Yes, sah!” reported Csesar, as soon as the 
window of the helmet was opened, “ thar’s sho’ 
a lot o’ money down thar. It ain’t goin’ to be so 
easy to git, though. It’s all packed in the seat 
lockers. Thar may be more in the lazaret. 
Thar’s some boxes in thar, an’ they’re sho’ heavy ! 
I could move ’em lively, though, sah, if Job’d 
come down.” 

But this the other diver would not do, in spite 
of the temptation of a larger share of the treas- 
ure. One of the other men of the crew volun- 
teered, however, and, though he had not had as 
much experience, under Caesar’s direction he did 
his part well enough. A section of the deck was 
cut away and the boxes passed up. By evening 
at least thirty thousand dollars in gold and silver 
pieces and in roughly melted bars had been 
brought up, and next day the sum was almost 
doubled. It made a considerable fortune, in all, 
but Captain Jerry Voley divided it into three 
parts. One part he gave to Mark Hoveller, 
without whom the treasure would not have been 
found, one part was the share of the Moray and 
its owner, and the remaining third was divided 
among the crew, the larger part of this share 
going to those who had done the diving — Latimer 


SPANISH TREASURE 181 

included — the rest in proportion to the ratings of 
the men. 

By the second evening, the hulk had been thor- 
oughly explored and emptied, the pumping boat 
was once more lashed behind the chart-house, the 
anchors were raised, and the Moray started back 
on her way to the Bahamas. 

At supper, the “Admiral,” who had taken no 
part in the salvage operations from the sunken 
hulk, suddenly turned and said abruptly : 

“ Son Jerry, how much do ye think the share 
o’ the Moray ’ll be? ” 

“ It’s hard to say exactly, Father,” was the 
answer, “ because it’s sure that those rough lumps 
of gold are just a mixture of plate and jewelry 
melted down by the pirates, and not pure gold 
by any means. But there’s probably about two 
thousand pounds ($10,000) anyway.” 

“An’ that Hoveller fellow has as much? ” 

“Ay, Father.” 

“An’ what were ye layin’ to do wi’ the 
money? ” 

The captain of the Moray glanced across at 
the old wrecker with an understanding look. 

“You were thinking of the St. JagoV * he 
asked. 


182 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“Ay, Son Jerry, I was a-thinkin’ of it.” 

“ Two thousand pounds isn’t much for a job 
of that sort,” the captain of the Moray rejoined, 
thoughtfully. 

“ Four thousand is ! ” 

“ You mean we ought to get Mark Hoveller 
in on it? ” 

“ If he wants to,” pursued the “ Admiral,” 
“ why not? ” 

Latimer leaned forward eagerly. This was 
one of his dreams. Ever and again he had heard 
his father and grandfather speak of trying to 
secure the treasure of the St. Jago } one of the 
sunken Spanish treasure galleons, the location of 
which had been handed down in the Voley family 
for generations. 

“ I’ll put in my share! ” he exclaimed. 

Neither of the men paid any attention to 
him. 

In response to a look of agreement in his son’s 
face, the “Admiral ” rose, put his head out of 
the cabin door, and roared: 

“ Send Mark Hoveller aft! ” 

There was never any need for the old wrecker 
to repeat an order. He could be heard half a 
mile away, for one thing, and, for another, his 


SPANISH TREASURE 183 

voice had a ring of authority which no one ever 
disputed. 

A minute later the sailor appeared, cap in 
hand. 

“ Come in, Hoveller,” said the “Admiral,” and 
pushed a glass of grog across the table. 

“ Thank ye, sir,” said Mark, and tossed it off. 

“ We’ve been a-talkin’ about ye, Hoveller,” 
the old wrecker began. “ Ye’ve got quite a pot 
o’ money, leastways ye will have when we make 
an accountin’ an’ divide up. Ten thousand dol- 
lars ye’ll have, maybe. What are ye goin’ to do 
with it? Get drunk an’ let the first hussy that 
ye meet take it all from ye? ” 

The sailor grinned sheepishly, and changed his 
weight from one foot to the other. 

“ I was layin’ for a spell on shore, sir,” he 
admitted. 

“ In Key West? ” 

“Ay, sir, that’s what I was thinkin’.” 

“ Ye’ve got no folks there? ” 

“ No, sir, none at all.” 

“Ye jest want to go there to blow it in, eh? 
First thing ye know, ye’ll be sand-bagged an’ 
robbed, or else some slick-fingered gambler’ll get 
yer pile. More likely yet, some keeper of a 


184 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

sailors’ boarding house’ll put knockout drops in 
yer coffee an’ ye’ll be shanghaied an’ that’s the 
last ye’ll ever see o’ yer money! ” 

But at this the sailor protested. 

“ I’m not such a lubber as all that, sir!” he 
declared. 

“Ay,” growled the old wrecker, “ ye’re like all 
the rest o’ yer crew. Ye think it’s always fair 
weather in harbor. I never yet saw a man who 
was a good sailorman aboard ship who knew 
enough to watch out for squalls ashore.” 

The implied compliment flattered the sailor’s 
vanity, as was intended, but he was determined 
to show his worldly wisdom. As the “Admiral ” 
had shrewdly guessed, Mark had no plans be- 
yond those of a somewhat sordid conception of 
a “ good time.” To excuse himself, he blurted 
out: 

“ I’d invest my money, sir.” 

The old wrecker screwed up a weather eye at 
the man. 

“ Ye never thought of it till this minute! ” he 
stormed. “An’ what’d ye invest in? Wall 
Street?” 

“ There’s a-plenty makes money that way, sir,” 
retorted Mark. 


SPANISH TREASURE 


185 


“ An’ in about three days ye’d be cleaned out 
alow an’ aloft an’ set adrift! ” 

“ There’s some honest brokers,” declared Mark, 
anxious to defend his new-found plan. 

“Ay, man, there’s mild-mannered sharks, too, 
likely, but ye ain’t never seen one. Nor has any 
one else. Did ye ever see a nice fat pig dropped 
into a bunch o’ sharks, Hoveller? That’s the 
way ye’ll look after the Wall Street yellow- 
bellies get at ye ! ” 

Mark began to look uneasy. The “Ad- 
miral’s ” sharp and caustic phrases brought him 
to a realization that he had actually no plans of 
his own with the money, and that nothing was 
more likely than that he would be robbed of it 
in some one or other of the ways suggested. He 
answered, yielding to the old man’s lead: 

“ What ought I to do with it, sir? ” 

“All depends if ye want to waste it or to use 
it,” the “Admiral ” answered. “ It isn’t as if ye 
had so much. Ten thousand dollars ain’t cap- 
ital enough to live on, that’s sure. It’s about 
enough for a stake on somethin’ bigger, an’ 
that’s all. Suppose ye could lay yer hands 
on half a million dollars, Hoveller, what 
then? ” 


186 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

The sailor’s eyes glistened, and he took a step 
forward greedily. 

The bait had taken! 

“ Heed me well, now, Hoveller,” the old 
wrecker went on, “ for I don’t talk twice. I’m 
a-goin’ to put a fair offer before ye. Ye can 
say ‘ yes ’ to what I have to say, or ye can 
say ‘ no ’ an’ that’ll be the last of it. But if 
ye’ve any sense in yer head, ye’ll jump at the 
chance. 

“ I’ll hand to ye, the day we land at Nassau, 
without waitin’ for any court proceedin’s about 
the treasure, one thousand dollars in cash, for 
spendin’ money. If ye show yerself a fool an’ 
lose it right away, that’s your business. I’ll put 
another thousand in the bank for ye, an’ fix it so’s 
ye can’t draw more’n a hundred dollars at a time. 
The other eight thousand dollars ye’ll put in 
with us. 

“ For generations there’s been handed down in 
the Voley family a story tellin’ where there lies 
the wreck of an ol’ Spanish galleon, wi’ nigh four 
million dollars in gold aboard her. We know 
whereabouts she lies, but it’ll take weeks — maybe 
months — o’ searchin’ to find her. An’ after she’s 
found, it’s goin’ to be a tricky bit o’ business, 


SPANISH TREASURE 187 

gettin’ the treasure. Only — the job’s big enough 
to be worth tryin’ ! 

“ If ye want to go in with us, Hoveller, we’ll 
put a valuation on the Moray an’ on the capital 
we put in, an’ ye shall get a share proportionate 
to the amount o’ money ye put in. There’s no 
sayin’ how much we find, or if we find any. But, 
if we do find the galleon, what ye get out o’ her 
yerself ought to be enough to keep ye the rest o’ 
yer life.” 

“An’ if I’m willin’, sir,” said Mark, cautiously, 
“ what do I have to do on the search myself? ” 

“ Ye’ll come as quartermaster on the Moray ” 
the “Admiral ” replied. “ Yer pay’ll be reg’lar 
quartermaster’s pay, to be taken out o’ yer share 
o’ the treasure, if we find any, an’ to be jest 
wages, if we don’t. There’s an extra bunk 
in the assistant engineer’s cabin, an’ ye can 
sleep there. Ye’ll mess with the engineers an’ 
steward.” 

“ Who’d be in charge o’ this here expedition, 
sir? ” the sailor asked. 

“ I would, myself,” the “Admiral ” responded. 

Mark Hoveller nodded approval of this. 

“ An’ yo’ll take charge o’ my money, yo’self, 
sir? ” 


188 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Certainly, if ye want me to.” 

“ The name o’ ‘Admiral ’ Voley,” declared 
Mark with decision, “ is known for square dealin’ 
from one end o’ the West Indies to the other, an’ 
better’n a bank. I ain’t got none too much use 
for banks. Ay, sir,” he continued, turning di- 
rectly to the “Admiral,” “ if this expedition is 
yourn, an’ yo’ll take charge o’ my money, I’m 
willin’ to join, providin’ I can get spendin’ money 
freely whenever I like.” 

“ Ye’ll get what I told ye,” the old wrecker 
answered shortly. “ Those are the terms. Do 
ye sign on? ” 

“Ay, sir,” came the definite response, “ I’ll 
sign on.” 

“ Get out the articles, Son Jerry!” cried the 
old man, who never let a matter drag a moment 
longer than he could help. Five minutes later a 
brief agreement had been drawn up, and signed, 
and Mark Hoveller had signed articles as quar- 
termaster on board the Moray for a period not 
to exceed one year. 

“ Now, Son Jerry,” the “Admiral ” said, lean- 
ing forward and mixing himself another glass of 
grog, " ye can tell him about the St. J ago. For 
all his superstitious notions, I’ve noticed Hoveller 


SPANISH TREASURE 


189 


can keep quiet when he likes. If he’s goin’ on 
shares, he ought to know.” 

The captain of the Moray nodded, refilled his 
pipe, and began: 

“ Do you know much about sunken treasure, 
Hoveller? ” he asked. “ Especially here, in the 
West Indies? ” 

“ No, sir, not much,” the sailor responded. 
“ I did hear that, in the old days, there was a 
sight o’ Spanish vessels went to the bottom, 
though.” 

“ More than you’d think. You’ve no idea of 
the amount of money that is lying at the bottom 
of the sea. Let me give you some figures, 
Hoveller, and you’ll open your eyes. Just listen 
to this : 

“ Figuring it all up together, during the last 
five hundred years there have been dug from the 
gold and silver mines of the world or taken from 
the hoards of ancient civilizations such as those of 
the Aztecs and Incas, about thirty billions of 
dollars’ worth of treasure. The total value of 
all gold and silver coins, in all countries of the 
world, is about eleven billions, this including the 
bullion stored in various treasuries against the 
paper money issued. That leaves nineteen bil- 


190 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


lions of dollars’ worth of gold and silver to be 
accounted for. 

“ Now, it has been estimated that in gold and 
silver ornaments, jewelry, watch-cases, table- 
ware and the like, in all the countries of the 
world, about seven billion dollars’ worth of fine 
metal is tied up. There is still buried treasure, 
kept as private hoards — mainly in Asia — amount- 
ing to another three billions. Temple and royal 
treasures make up for three billions more. Worn 
away or abraded by handling, both in coins and in 
various objects of gold and silver during the past 
five hundred years another four billions has 
been lost, and the remaining two billion dollars’ 
worth of gold and silver lies at the bottom of the 
sea.” 

“Two billions of dollars, sir!” exclaimed 
Hoveller, for, even to him, the sum total was 
staggering. 

“At least that. And, what is even more inter- 
esting to wreckers, a good half of this amount 
lies within less than a hundred fathoms of the 
surface, some of it in quite shallow water. Of 
this gold and silver, the larger part was sunk in 
the Spanish treasure ships, which, during the 
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries 


SPANISH TREASURE 191 

bore cargo after cargo of gold from Mexico and 
Peru. 

“ In general, Hoveller, those treasure fleets 
followed one of five routes, and most of the 
wrecks of the Spanish galleons are to be found 
along those routes or in places whither they were 
blown by bad weather from there. I’ve done 
quite a bit of studying on those routes, and the 
‘Admiral ’ and I have charted them out pretty 
exactly. 

“ The first route was from Panama to Santo 
Domingo and through Mona Passage out to the 
Atlantic. When, a little later, Havana became 
the Spanish capital, the plate-fleets went from 
Panama to Havana, and then coasted along the 
north of Cuba to the Old Bahama Channel and 
out to sea by the Silver Bank Passage. The 
Windward Passage, which is the best of all, they 
seldom used. The third route, from Venezuela, 
ran north of the chain of islands which lies along 
the Caribbean coast of South America and into 
the Atlantic, north of Trinidad. Some of the 
Peruvian treasure was sent through Magellan’s 
Straits, or round Cape Horn and then across to 
the Canary Islands. The Portuguese took the 
route from Brazil to Sierra Leone. 


192 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ You may not know it, Hoveller, but, three 
centuries ago, Charles V of Spain sent a com- 
mission of Flemish engineers to survey the 
Isthmus of Panama to see if it were possible to 
cut a canal through. The engineers reported it 
as feasible, but their estimates of the cost were so 
high as to frighten the emperor off. 

“ This project was mainly for the purpose of 
stopping the terrible losses which the plate-fleets 
sustained, after rounding Cape Horn, from 
pirates and privateers. These pirate ships used 
the estuary of the River La Plata as their head- 
quarters, and the plate-fleet which reached Spain 
without having seen the English or Dutch en- 
sign on a privateer, or the black flag or Jolly 
Roger on a pirate craft, considered itself lucky. 

“And now we come to the St. Jago de Alma - 
zora. She was a historic vessel, and her fate 
was tragic.” 

Captain Voley stopped a moment to make sure 
that his hearer was listening. He did not need. 
Mark Hoveller was following with the most in- 
tense absorption. The “Admiral ” had well 
judged the man. The old wrecker had been 
shrewd enough to perceive that a seaman whose 
imagination was so easily stimulated by the 


SPANISH TREASURE 


193 


superstitions of the ocean, and whose memory 
was good enough to store them in his mind was 
exactly the kind of man who would be adventur- 
ous enough and romantic enough for treasure- 
hunting. 

The captain of the Moray resumed. 

“ You’ve heard of Columbus, I know, Hovel- 
ler, because, the other day, I heard you talking 
about the ‘ Hand o’ Satan Island,’ and saying 
that the island was on the other side of the At- 
lantic before Columbus crossed. But do you 
know how many voyages Columbus made? ” 

“ Two or three, I think, sir,” the sailor an- 
swered, “ but I’m not quite sure.” 

“ He made four,” corrected Captain Voley, 
“ that is, four voyages across the Atlantic. On 
the first voyage he found the Bahama Islands, 
Haiti and the eastern part of Cuba, and sailed 
back to Spain, leaving a small colony on Haiti. 
On his second voyage he first made land at 
Dominica, sailed up the Leeward Islands to 
Porto Rico and thence to Haiti, to find every man 
slain in the colony he had left behind. He 
founded a town further east on the north coast 
of Haiti and then left on a journey of explora- 
tion along the southern coast of Cuba. When he 


194 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

got back to Haiti he found that mutiny had 
broken out. He tried to straighten things out, 
but they went from bad to worse, the whole 
colony rose in revolt, and Columbus returned to 
Spain with his reputation badly shaken. 

“ It was nearly three years before he could get 
funds for a third voyage. This time he took a 
course too far south, got into the doldrums and 
he and all his crews nearly died from lack of 
water. At last the current brought him to Trini- 
dad. Exploring the west coast of that island he 
discovered South America. Sailing north from 
there he reached Haiti again, only to find the 
island in a state of civil war. So many com- 
plaints were made that the King of Spain sent 
out a new governor, who, after a short investiga- 
tion of the situation, arrested Columbus and sent 
him back to Spain in chains. The navigator was 
pardoned by the king and queen, but he was a 
disgraced man and all his titles and honors were 
taken from him. 

“ Once more he started out, but this time he 
had strict orders from the King of Spain not to 
touch on Haiti. There had been trouble enough 
there already. Columbus took the same course 
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SPANISH TREASURE 


195 


he found one of his smaller ships becoming un- 
seaworthy. Remembering that he still had many 
friends in Haiti, he decided to land there, in 
spite of the royal prohibition, and to endeavor to 
secure another ship. Columbus arrived off 
Santo Domingo on July 1 , 1502, and any hesi- 
tation that he might have felt about running into 
that harbor in defiance of the royal orders was 
overcome by the fact that he saw a storm was 
brewing.” 

Mark Hoveller nodded sagely. 

“ That’s the hurricane season down there, sir,” 
he remarked. 

“ Exactly. Now Bobadilla, the governor who 
had been sent out to replace Columbus, had 
treated the Indians with such atrocious cruelty 
and had made the conditions of the colony so 
terrible that there had been more complaints of 
him, even, than there had been of Columbus. 
So, between Columbus’ third and fourth voy- 
ages, another governor, called Ovando, had been 
sent, who, when it came to cruelty, was, if any- 
thing, a shade worse than Bobadilla. Ovando 
had orders to send Bobadilla back, not exactly 
to stand trial, but to give an accounting of his 
governorship. 


196 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ Now listen closely to this, Hoveller. Spain, 
of course, wanted only one thing out of these dis- 
coveries, and that was gold. Columbus’ voyages 
had been efforts to find a westward route to China 
and the Spice Islands for trade. Columbus 
hadn’t found that route. The new colonies did 
not pay. That was the main reason of his dis- 
grace. Bobadilla knew that his own fate would 
hang on the amount of treasure he could collect. 
So, for the two years of his governorship, he had 
committed the most horrible atrocities on the 
natives in order to collect every grain of gold 
that could be found in the country. 

“ When Ovando came, he realized that if 
Bobadilla returned to Spain with so much treas- 
ure, he might be reinstated and the new governor 
might lose his position. Several months were to 
elapse before the fleet went to Spain. Where- 
upon Ovando commenced even worse cruelties 
upon the natives than Bobadilla had done. Al- 
though the former governor had exacted a crush- 
ing tax, Ovando issued orders that every cacique 
or native headman should pay a further tribute 
and, if he failed to deliver it on a certain day. 
his right hand was to be cut off. Many could 
not pay and were mutilated in this fashion. 


SPANISH TREASURE 


197 


“ One case especially caused a great stir and 
all but raised all the Indians of the island in re- 
volt against the Spaniards. It would have 
done so, but the natives had been so cowed 
by the stern rule of Bobadilla that they dared not 
rise. 

“ One of the Arawak tribes was governed by 
a woman chief, named Ana-Caona, who was not 
only chief tainess, but also the priestess of the 
tribe. She had a daughter, a girl not quite fif- 
teen years of age. Ovando, the new governor, 
demanded from Ana-Caona a very large tribute, 
for he had heard that gold mines existed in the 
territory of her tribe. The woman chief brought 
to Ovando all the gold she could secure, but it 
was a long way short of the tribute demanded. 
Whereupon the governor gave orders that the 
woman and girl should be first maltreated and 
then tortured, after which he hanged both the 
chief tainess and her child, so that they should not 
be able to testify against him nor to arouse the 
hostility of the Indians by accounts of how they 
had been treated. 

“A woman who was washing for gold in the 
sand of a little stream in Ana-Caona’s territory 
turned over with her rake a nugget weighing six 


198 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


hundred ounces, the largest ever found in Haiti, 
and worth to-day over twelve thousand dollars. 
The Indian woman hurried with this nugget to 
the governor, but it was too late. Ana-Caona 
and her daughter had been hanged the day be- 
fore! Ovando promptly put the Indian woman 
to death, so that she could not tell about the 
nugget and the crime. 

“ Such was the situation when Columbus, un- 
expectedly, put into the harbor of Santo Do- 
mingo. The fleet, carrying all the treasure 
which Bobadilla had gathered, and also that 
which Ovando had hurriedly secured during the 
few months of his governorship, was lying in the 
harbor of Santo Domingo, ready to sail. Ovando 
himself was at the port. 

“No sooner did Columbus land than he was 
greeted with peremptory orders to leave the har- 
bor immediately. Ovando was aware that Co- 
lumbus had been forbidden by royal orders to set 
foot on Haiti, and the governor also realized 
that, for his own safety, the navigator must go. 
Columbus had many enemies in Santo Domingo, 
but he also had many friends. The once famous 
admiral and discoverer of the island was for- 
bidden even to speak to any one on the street, 


SPANISH TREASURE 199 

and ordered to get out of the harbor without an 
instant’s delay, leaky ship and all. 

“ Columbus protested vigorously, declaring 
this to be inhuman treatment, since there was no 
other harbor or settlement in all those seas, and 
a tempest was brewing. Ovando, however, was 
relentless, and, knowing that he possessed the 
official authority to do so, threatened to turn the 
guns of the fleet on the small and sea-battered 
caravels of the great discoverer. 

“ Rendered helpless by the royal ban, Colum- 
bus returned to his vessels, raised his anchors and 
set sail. But, before he cleared the harbor, sea- 
manship overcame resentment, and he sent a boat 
back to the governor, beseeching him to keep the 
treasure fleet in harbor for at least a week longer, 
for he alone had experience in those seas, and 
knew that evil weather threatened. The warn- 
ing was disregarded. 

“ Columbus, convinced that the storm was ap- 
proaching — although the sky and sea showed few 
outward signs visible to a landsman’s eye — 
sought for some kind of a haven. Fifty miles 
further west, along the coast, he found the little 
bay of Azua, into which he sailed two days later. 
There he put out every anchor and snugged his 


200 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


ships down as much as possible, in preparation 
for the storm he expected. 

“ That same day the treasure fleet, twenty- 
eight vessels in all, among them the St. Jago de 
Almazora, set sail for Spain. They had not been 
out of the harbor thirty-six hours when a West 
Indian hurricane of the most violent type burst 
upon them with full force, sinking twenty out of 
the twenty-eight vessels of the fleet, among the 
ill-fated ships being those which had contained 
the treasure. Bobadilla, the plundering gov- 
ernor, was drowned also. Only one of the gal- 
leons reached Spain. 

“ The total amount of gold, silver and pearls 
on board all the ships of the fleet, according to 
the old records of Santo Domingo, was two hun- 
dred thousand castellanos — equal to at least 
seven hundred and fifty million dollars to-day — 
most of which now lies on the reefs west of Silver 
Bank, or on the shoals and banks that fringe the 
north coast of Haiti and the dangerous waters be- 
tween Turks and Caicos Islands. 

“ But, to come to the actual point of our 
project, Hoveller, you ought to be told that the 
treasure of Ovando, that treasure which cost such 
abominable cruelty to gather, that treasure which 


SPANISH TREASURE 


201 


included the six-thousand-ounce nugget of Ana- 
Caona, was in the coffers of the St. Jago de 
Almazova ” 

He paused a moment, and added impressively: 
“And we know where the St. Jago lies! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


MASTERLESS GOLD 

During the period of preparation for the 
search of the St. Jago , Latimer pestered his 
father so continually about questions of treasure 
and treasure-hunting that one afternoon the cap- 
tain of the Moray took the boy to the attic of 
the coral-built house on Biminis, unlocked an old 
chest and threw back the lid. The box was 
packed to the brim with old volumes, on the top 
of which lay a small bundle of manuscript. 

“ There !” he said. “Read your fill! I’ve 
kept these books away from you, Lat, because I 
didn’t want you to get the treasure-hunting idea 
too young. That’s only an incident in salvage, 
remember! But, since we have decided to go in 
search of the St. Jago , there’s no harm in your 
learning all you can about the Spanish treasure 
ships.” 

“And have you read all these books, Dad? ” 
queried the boy, surprised, for he had never 

202 


MASTERLESS GOLD 203 

tapped this vein in his strictly practical father 
before. 

The captain of the Moray smiled grimly, as 
though he guessed the thought that was passing 
in the boy’s mind. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ I’ve read all these and a lot 
more. I was just wild to go treasure-hunting 
when I was your age, Lat, and used to think that 
your grandfather was just wasting his time be- 
cause he did not start that very day to find some 
Spanish galleon that was lying on a shoal, wait- 
ing for us to come and fill our pockets with the 
shining pieces. I can remember the time when 
it seemed to me that I could see the St. Jago right 
out there, on the reefs in front of our door! As 
a lad of nine or ten years old, I used to have 
day-dreams of swimming into the sea and coming 
back to the house a few hours later with my waist- 
handkerchief full of pieces of eight and Spanish 
doubloons.” 

“And yet you never tried, Dad? ” 

“ Never, Lat. The Voley name is so well 
known in wrecking circles that we were seldom 
idle. As I got older, little by little, I took over 
a large share of Father’s work. Then I saw that 
times were changing and that modern salvage 


204 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

was superseding old-time wrecking. Father 
either couldn’t or wouldn’t see it, but stuck to 
the old ways. 

“ Over and over again I got disgusted with 
the trickery and semi-piracy around me, and I 
couldn’t tell you how many times I determined 
to leave the Bahamas and go somewhere else to 
start into modern ways for myself. Then, just 
after some wreck had happened which seemed 
wrong and queer, the ‘Admiral ’ would do some 
heroic or gallant rescue that no other man on the 
island would have dared attempt, and my old 
respect and admiration would come back. And, 
the older I grow, the more I compare his big- 
heartedness and dauntless courage with the com- 
mercial ideas of to-day, and I wish that I were 
more like him. 

“ Then came one or two lucky hauls, especially 
the bringing in of the derelict Glen Lothian — I’ll 
tell you about her some day — which gave me the 
chance to buy the Moray. She’d been built for an 
ocean-going tug, but her frame was too heavy 
for her engines. Little by little I’ve practically 
rebuilt her, put in two modern turbine engines, 
and equipped her so that she’s the most powerful 
wrecking tug on the Bahamas, or, for that 


MASTERLESS GOLD 205 

matter, anywhere between Norfolk and Galves- 
ton. 

“ Ever since then I’ve been so busy handling 
straight salvage work that I’d dropped all idea 
of treasure-hunting. I don’t believe I’d ever 
have taken it up again, if Mark Hoveller hadn’t 
brought that story of Captain Lincoln to 
Father.” 

“ Yet you went into that quickly enough! ” the 
boy remarked. 

“ It was only a chance shot,” Captain Jerry 
answered. 44 If we found nothing, it only meant 
the loss of a day or two, and I hadn’t any inten- 
tion of spending much time there. It was Father 
who was bent on going. I wouldn’t have both- 
ered about that Lincoln story at all, if Hoveller 
had showed it first to me.” 

44 1 wonder why Grap jumped at it so? ” 

44 He knew the reefs down there. He’d had 
a wreck or two somewhere in those waters in the 
sixties or seventies, and, as you know, Lat, your 
grandfather never forgets the lie of a shoal or 
a reef. He can quote you the soundings and the 
bearings of mighty near every rock or bar be- 
tween North Biminis and Silver Bank, and a 
heap further, too. You saw yourself how he 


206 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


took the Moray up to Ghost Island, near enough 
to the actual spot for us to be able to find the 
sunken hulk in a few hours. 

“ Then the depth in which she was reported to 
lie made it seem so easy both to find and to sal- 
vage. That was one thing the pirates were not 
likely to have made a mistake about. They were 
first-class sailormen, as a rule, those old pirates. 
They had to be! And there’s not much chance 
for going wrong with a lead-line in smooth water. 

“ To tell you the truth, though, Lat,” the 
salver continued, “ I was surprised that we got 
as rich a haul as we did.” 

“Were you, Dad?” exclaimed Latimer, sur- 
prised. “ I expected ten times as much! ” 

His father smiled. 

“ That’s poor judgment on your part, Lat,” 
he said. “ Think for a minute! We found six 
thousand pounds. The Lincoln story said that 
there were at least four of the pirates who knew 
about the treasure, and probably a couple more. 
That would only divide up to a thousand pounds 
or five thousand dollars apiece, hardly more than 
a few months’ spending money for a gang like 
that. It would be a long way short of the sum 
necessary for a pirate to give up the sea and live 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


207 


on, and that was what these gentry were always 
striving for. If there had been ten times as 
much, the way you say, the pirates would have 
taken their winnings and retired. 

“ Modern pirates have to be content with small 
gains. It isn’t like the days when the Spanish 
plate-fleets were on the water, and one prize 
would mean a fortune for every man of the pirate 
crew. 

“ Money nowadays is sent overseas in fast and 
powerful steamships. What chance would a 
pirate schooner have against such a craft, espe- 
cially when equipped with wireless? They 
couldn’t overhaul her, in the first place; nor seize 
her, in the second ; nor run her engines and navi- 
gate her, in the third; and the wireless would 
summon revenue cutters and light cruisers from 
a dozen ports, so that escape would be impossible. 
The only place where pirates can operate now- 
adays is in the China Seas, and they take good 
care to let steamships alone. 

“ No, Lat, the only hope for treasure now is 
to fish it up from the bottom of the sea. And 
West Indian waters are the best hunting-ground 
of all. If you dig into those books, Son, you’ll 
find some amazing stories.” 


208 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


He leaned down and picked out the little pile 
of manuscript, written in a round boyish hand- 
writing. 

“ Read that!” he said. “ I wrote it when I 
was about your age. Most of it I copied out of 
an old book, and added bits of information which 
I picked out here and there from some of the 
old volumes in that chest. It isn’t a full list, not 
by a long shot, but it will give you an idea how 
thick these reefs are strewed with treasure.” 

He handed the manuscript to the lad, and 
turned to go. 

“ Don’t imagine, though,” he added, halting at 
the head of the attic ladder, “ that treasure-hunt- 
ing is easy. It isn’t! It’s a risky speculation 
at best. And, even after you’ve found a sunken 
wreck, it doesn’t follow that you get anything 
out of it. If the gold were easy to find and to 
raise, it wouldn’t have stayed there all these 
years ! ” 

“ No,” admitted Latimer, “ I can see that. 
Thanks ever so much, Dad! ” he called. 

Then, perching himself on a corner of the 
chest, he turned to the first page of his father’s 
manuscript, and began to read: 

“When, in the sixteenth century, Spain dis- 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


209 


covered gold in America, all Europe scented the 
prey and was moved with an unlawful desire to 
share it. These yearnings and the depredations 
that followed led to the organization of the flota, 
a convoyed fleet of plate-ships, and to the estab- 
lishment of haberia, a sort of insurance tax. The 
flota was dispatched every six months alternately 
from Mexico and Peru to the port of San Lucar, 
near Cadiz. Such fleets contained as many as 
seventy-five or even a hundred vessels, convoyed 
by Spanish ships of war. 

“ It was difficult for pirates to attack such a 
fleet, for the sailing pace was kept so slow as to 
allow laggards to keep up. If, during a storm, 
a vessel proved unseaworthy, she was scuttled 
and abandoned and the cargo and crew trans- 
ferred to other ships of the fleet. Even so, dar- 
ing raids were made by swift-sailing armed 
privateers. 

“ The Spanish precaution was excellent, but 
it was destined to be defeated. Designs upon the 
plate-fleets assumed a more systematic and for- 
midable character. Quarrels were fixed upon 
Spain on any pretext, even the most trivial. War 
was declared against her, and privateers were 
dispatched from almost every port in Europe to 


210 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

snatch from her a portion of the coveted wealth 
which she was wresting so rapidly and so cruelly 
from America. 

“ Sea-rovers, either with or without govern- 
ment pennants, sailed from England, Holland 
and France, both in times of war and times of 
peace. These vessels, swift, heavily armed and 
carrying enormous crews of semi-piratic des- 
peradoes, intercepted the Spanish galleons on 
their way to join the convoy, sacked the towns of 
New Spain, looted the bullion depositories, and — 
to their discredit be it told — did not scruple to 
torture the Spanish officials to make them dis- 
gorge their personal treasure. Such treatment 
was regarded as fair reprisal, for the Spanish 
had long before set the fashion of torturing all 
sea-rovers as ‘ pyrats and hereticks.’ 

“ The coasts of New Granada were ravaged 
by privateers in 1572; half a dozen towns in Mex- 
ico were burned, their inhabitants put to the 
sword, and every speck of valuables seized in 
1576, the famous capture of Nombre de Dios by 
Drake being especially notable. No less than 
seventeen privateer vessels harried the coasts of 
Peru and Chile in 1577. The town of Carta- 
gena, Spain, was sacked by an English fleet un- 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


211 


der Drake in 1585 , just at the time that a Spanish 
plate-fleet had arrived and many of the vessels 
were still unloaded. Enormous booty was taken 
by a combined privateer fleet in an attack on 
Santo Domingo in 1586 , and this wholesale 
destruction and spoliation of the Spaniards was 
capped by the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 
the English Channel and the subsequent scatter- 
ing and sinking of that famous fleet by a terrible 
storm. 

“ During the twenty years, 1567 - 1587 , the 
privateers actually seized 7 , 000,000 gold ducats, 
equal to about $ 70 , 000,000 in plunder, and sent 
to the bottom of the sea Spanish vessels contain- 
ing fully three times as much treasure. Of the 
more than $200,000,000 lost on the shores of 
America, Africa or Europe during the sixteenth 
century, not more than $10,000,000 has been re- 
covered. 

“ The seventeenth century saw not only the 
pirates and the privateers at work, but also the 
buccaneers, a curiously organized system of free- 
booting on the sea, which rose, for a while, to the 
dignity of a sea-empire and was tacitly recog- 
nized by the maritime nations, though in defiance 
of international law. Oftentimes these buc- 


212 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


caneers acted in cooperation with naval fleets, but 
still more frequently they worked alone. 

“ Vera Cruz was plundered in 1608 , St. 
Thomas and other settlements on the Orinoco in 
1617 , and Matanzas in 1628 — with a booty of 
11 , 600,000 guilders (about $ 49 , 000 , 000 ). Ma- 
racaibo fell into the hands of the buccaneers with 
$ 24 , 000,000 in 1666 , Porto Bello four years 
later, St. Catherine in 1671 . In that same year 
Panama — with a booty so immense that it has 
never been estimated — was taken by the notori- 
ous buccaneer-governor, Sir Henry Morgan. In 
1683 Vera Cruz was again captured, $ 1 , 000,000 
was paid in hard cash for ransoms, $ 9 , 000,000 
was taken in plunder and 1,500 slaves were 
seized. Campeachy fell in 1685 and Cartagena, 
with $ 8 , 000,000 in silver, in 1697 . 

“ During the buccaneer century the bucca- 
neers, privateers and pirates amassed close to an- 
other $200,000,000. Little of this reached Eu- 
rope. It was spent lavishly in such places as the 
Tortugas and Port Royal, and it is estimated 
that at least one-fifth of it was buried in various 
places by buccaneers who died of wounds and 
diseases before they ever again had an oppor- 
tunity to dig up their cached hoards. 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


213 


“A list of the ships sunk during these two cen- 
turies with treasure aboard would be enormous. 
A few of the better known wrecks may be 
named. 

“ Twenty years after the destruction of the 
treasure fleet which sailed from the harbor of 
Santo Domingo, in spite of Columbus’ warning, 
a vessel sailed from Vera Cruz with a cargo of 
gold bars, the wardrobe of the slain Aztec Em- 
peror, Montezmna, and chests upon chests of 
jewels and precious stones, including what was 
declared to be 4 the finest collection of huge pearls 
upon which the eye of man has ever fallen.’ These 
were shipped by Cortes as the crowning evidence 
of his triumphant conquest. The galleon, how- 
ever, was captured off the coast of Spain by a 
French corsair, the Jean Florin , which, pursued 
by Spanish war vessels, ran into the nest of small 
islands which lie between Quiberon and Le 
Croisic, at the north of the Bay of Biscay, but 
was herself impaled on the rocks to which she had 
tried to decoy her pursuers. 

“ In 1586 Sir Francis Drake attacked the 
Spanish plate-fleet off the Cape Verde Islands, 
captured five of the galleons and sank eleven. 
Treasure from one of these ships has been re- 


214 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

covered, amounting to $750,000, but the other 
ten have not yet been found. 

“ On June 18, 1589, George Clifford, Earl of 
Cumberland, known as ‘ the prince of pirates/ 
captured a Spanish galleon off San Juan de 
Ulloa and sent her home to Plymouth with a 
prize crew. By some treachery the galleon was 
wrecked off Land’s End, and the loot was never 
recovered. 

“ In 1592 Sir John Burrough captured the 
Spanish treasure ship Madre de Dios , off the 
Azores, with $800,000 of treasure aboard her, but 
her consort, even more richly laden, was sunk. 
There are the wrecks of seventeen Spanish plate- 
ships around the Azores. 

“ In 1597, the Earl of Essex, acting as ad- 
miral of a fleet of 120 ships, in which fleet Lord 
Thomas Howard and Sir Walter Raleigh were 
vice-admirals, scoured the Gulf of Mexico. They 
captured thirty-one Spanish vessels and drove 
many others (twenty according to one record, 
forty-three according to another) to shipwreck 
on the West Indian and South American shores 
of the Caribbean. 

“ In the same year the Spanish galleon Mar- 
garita, with $6,500,000 in gold, trying to escape 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


215 


from outlying ships of the Earl of Essex’s fleet, 
was driven ashore on a reef near Porto Rico. 
She lies in comparatively shallow water. The 
wreck was discovered in 1898 by a party of stu- 
dents from Hartford, but the treasure-seekers 
were inexperienced, lacked sufficient capital to 
carry through their discoveries, and the gold lies 
there still. 

“ Up to this time the greater part of the 
privateering — which came close to piracy — had 
been done by the English. When, however, 
Holland threw off the clutch of Spain, the Dutch 
proceeded to secure vengeance for the terrible 
sufferings which they had been compelled to en- 
dure under the Duke of Alva and the familiars 
of the Inquisition. What Drake had been to the 
Spanish during the sixteenth century, Admiral 
Peter Hein was in the early part of the seven- 
teenth century. He was put in charge of the 
Dutch Atlantic fleet in the spring of 1623 and 
he started out vigorously. 

“ In the summer of 1623, after lying in wait 
for some months near the Atlantic passage to 
Cape Horn, he encountered the Spanish plate- 
fleet, numbering more than fifty vessels. He had 
only nineteen small ships under his command. A 


216 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


consummate seaman, instead of giving battle at 
once, Hein manoeuvred until he got the weather 
gage of the enemy, and, operating mainly at 
night, harried the stragglers, little by little edging 
them in closer and closer to the treacherous coast. 
Then, with the wind in his favor, he suddenly 
opened a furious attack. The Spanish ships, 
caught in shoal water and on a lee shore, could 
not cluster to bring all their guns to bear. Hein 
sank three galleons in deep water, captured 
eleven and forced most of the rest ashore. The 
amount of booty secured is not known, nor is 
there any record as to what happened to the re- 
maining few ships of the plate-fleet. Probably 
the buccaneers got them. It is known, however, 
that not a vessel reached Spain, and their cargoes 
must still be in the deep. 

“ Five years later, on September 8, 1628, 
Hein, who had been waiting for the West Indies 
plate-fleet, discovered the Spanish flota between 
Key West and Havana. He tried to force the 
heavy vessels on the fatal reef barrier of the 
Anquila Islands which runs from Dog Rocks to 
the southern end of Salt Cay Bank, and the 
Spanish admiral, not daring to risk the narrow 
and rock-obstructed Nicholas Channel with the 


MASTERLESS GOLD 217 

Dutch wasps stinging at his heels, ran into Ma- 
tanzas Bay. 

“ Hein, whose fleet now numbered thirty-nine 
vessels, and who did not lack for courage, waited 
until morning and then sailed boldly into the 
bay after the powerful fleet. As happened so 
often in the warfare of those days, the small ves- 
sels outfought the larger, and, before evening, 
Hein was master of the whole plate-fleet. In 
actual plunder he obtained more than 11,600,000 
florins, worth to-day nearly $30,000,000. Most 
of the gold, however, had been dropped over- 
board by the Spanish during the night, for the 
original lading showed $110,000,000 aboard. 
About $80,000,000 in gold, therefore, lies at the 
bottom of Matanzas Bay, in a depth of from 
fifteen to twenty fathoms. 

“An even more famous case was the wreck of 
a Spanish treasure-ship lost on ‘ The Boilers ’ 
(reefs lying between Turks Island and the 
Tortugas), north of Haiti. This treasure was 
discovered by the son of a Maine blacksmith, who 
rose to become the first royal governor of Massa- 
chusetts. 

“ William Phips was born in Pemaquid, 
Maine, in 1651. He was one of a family of 


218 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


twenty-six children, twenty of whom were boys. 
By turns he was a shepherd, farmer, and ships’ 
carpenter’s apprentice. He learned to read and 
write while he was learning his trade. He mar- 
ried a colonist’s daughter with a little property 
and established himself in a shipyard on the 
Sheepscot River, in Maine. From this he was 
driven out by Indian warfare. It was while he 
had charge of this shipyard, however, that he 
heard from a buccaneer who had brought his ves- 
sel to the yard for repairs, about the Spanish 
plate-ship on 4 The Boilers.’ 

44 With prompt resolution, Phips went to Lon- 
don, and was successful in getting an audience 
from James II, who was always very partial to 
sailors. Phips’ story was so circumstantial that 
the King agreed to help in the quest, and gave 
him command of the Rose Alger , a frigate of 
eighteen guns. The voyage was an unhappy 
one. Phips was an excellent ship-builder, but 
he was not a competent navigator, and his man- 
ners were so rough as to alienate the ship’s of- 
ficers. Storms were continuous, and, once in 
the neighborhood of the dangerous Bahaman 
shoals and reefs, the men mutined. The mutiny 
was fomented by the ship’s officers, who de- 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


219 


dared — not without reason — that Phips’ reck- 
lessness and ignorance were apt to send the 
frigate to the bottom at any minute. The 
mutineers rushed aft in a body to seize their com- 
mander, but Phips stretched the ringleader dead 
with a single blow of his fist. The rest of the 
mutineers he cowed single-handed. The wreck 
could not be found, however, and with a bad 
grace, Phips returned to England. 

“ There was a compelling character in his per- 
sonality, however, which won him confidence. 
The Duke of Albemarle, son of General Monk, 
subscribed funds for a second expedition. Bad 
weather again pursued the treasure-seekers, and 
though the details which had been given Phips 
by the buccaneer were precise, many days of 
weary sounding of the depths proved fruitless. 
At last even Phips despaired and prepared to go. 

“ Examining the bottom through a water- 
glass, for the last time, he saw growing beneath 
him, a wonderful example of a sea-pen (a form 
of coral-colony which grows like an enormous liv- 
ing feather) and bade a diver go down for it as 
a specimen. The diver descended and found 
himself on the deck of a ship. 

“ It was the lost galleon ! 


220 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ A gun was the first booty hauled to the sur- 
face, and then a bar of silver. The wreck was at 
a depth of eight fathoms, a difficult task for the 
divers of the seventeenth century. None the 
less, $1,500,000 in gold and silver was recovered 
from the sunken galleon, every penny of which 
Phips brought to London, and in the dividing of 
which he showed the most scrupulous honesty, a 
rare thing in those days, when treasure-finders 
universally tried to cheat the Crown, the backers 
and the crew. The doughty adventurer was 
knighted, was awarded $80,000 as his share and 
received the appointment of sheriff of New Eng- 
land. 

“ In 1689, returning to his native land, he 
found Massachusetts in the hands of a revolu- 
tionary government, and in dire financial straits, 
for the colony could not redeem some paper 
money it had issued. Phips generously advanced 
money out of his own private purse. He re- 
turned to England to plead for changes in the 
charter of the colony, succeeded, and was ap- 
pointed the first royal governor of Massachu- 
setts. He made an efficient and hard-working 
official, but his rough sea-manners were intoler- 
able, and he was superstitious enough to let the 


MASTERLESS GOLD 221 

Salem witchcraft mania continue. He made so 
many enemies that he was recalled to London, 
where he died, awaiting trial. 

“ Sir Henry Morgan, indeed, was made gov- 
ernor of Jamaica because of his success as a pi- 
rate, but Sir William Phips is the only character 
in history who achieved a governorship because 
of finding sunken treasure. 

“It is probable that, had Phips not become 
governor, he would have started on another treas- 
ure hunt, for there is a letter left by him in which 
he expresses a wish to go on a search off the Isle 
of Teneriffe, one of the Canary Islands, where 
some $80,000,000 lies buried. 

“ In the year 1656, Admiral Blake, who had 
led the English fleets against the Dutch with 
varying success, had the temerity to attack the 
strong Spanish port of Cadiz, the Spanish head- 
quarters of the plate-fleet. He sailed into the 
harbor, brought out one galleon as a prize — find- 
ing $2,000,000 aboard her — and sank a number 
of other vessels. Spanish divers, however, have 
secured about $8,000,000 of the treasure sunk in 
the harbor. 

“ The following year, Blake, though desper- 
ately ill, dared an even more desperate venture. 


222 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


Learning that the Spanish plate-fleet, on her way 
home, had anchored in the bay of Santa Cruz, in 
the Island of Teneriffe, under the protection of 
a castle and five forts, Blake determined to sail 
in boldly. He might never get out alive, but if 
the Spanish plate-fleet could be sunk two years 
in succession it would cripple Spanish finances 
sorely. 

“ The wind was blowing fair into the harbor, 
and the British ships sailed in. The castle, the 
forts and the Spanish warships opened on the 
English vessels with a storm of shot and shell. 
In a few minutes, two of Blake’s ships were on 
fire. But, even on the burning ships, the man- 
o’-war’s-men worked their guns to the last, and, 
when their ships sank under them, swam to other 
vessels of the fleet, clambered aboard, and set to 
work again. So deadly was the marksmanship 
of the British ships and so poor that of the forts 
— the Spanish vessels gave a better account of 
themselves — that, before the engagement had 
continued an hour, all but three of the Spanish 
galleons were sunk or sinking. At this juncture 
there came a sudden shift of wind, and Blake, 
seizing the opportunity, set sail and sallied forth 
from the harbor, leaving behind him nothing of 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


223 


the Spanish plate-fleet but charred or sunken 
hulks. His own loss was but four vessels. There 
still lies, in the depths of the harbor of Santa 
Cruz, in Teneriffe, gold and silver variously esti- 
mated at between $80,000,000 and $120,000,000. 

“ The last engagement of the seventeenth 
century in which treasure-ships were destroyed 
was in 1697, when a combined squadron of Eng- 
lish and Dutch ships attacked the buccaneer 
fleet in Bahaman waters and sank a number of 
small vessels, the combined treasure of which is 
placed at $1,250,000. 

“ While the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which 
saw the end of the war which various maritime 
nations had waged against France, also ended the 
empire of the buccaneers, it did not put a stop to 
privateering. As long as Spain was taking gold 
from her colonies in America, so long did the 
English especially, and the Dutch to a less de- 
gree, covet that gold and stop at no means to se- 
cure it. England had maintained a Spanish alli- 
ance, as long as she needed it to attack France. 
Now that peace with France was secured, Eng- 
lish and Dutch privateers promptly proceeded to 
harry Spain anew. 

“ In 1702, Sir George Rooke, commanding a 


224 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

combined fleet of English and Dutch ships, was 
sent to intercept the Spanish plate-fleet on its 
way from Havana to Cadiz. Rooke received 
confidential information that the course of the 
fleet had been altered to Vigo, south of Cape Fin- 
isterre. Leaving the Dutch admiral, his ally, in 
ignorance of this plan, Rooke slipped away and 
stood for Vigo. 

“ The flota consisted of thirty treasure gal- 
leons, with $60,000,000 in gold and silver, and an 
unusually large amount of merchandise, the 
whole convoyed by Spanish and French war-ves- 
sels. Rooke waited for a favoring wind, and 
then sent into the harbor a fleet of fire-ships, 
fully ablaze and loaded with combustibles. 
Seven of the galleons had already been unloaded 
and the men were at work on the others, when 
the fire-ships appeared. In the confusion caused 
by the fire-ships, Rooke sailed in, destroyed every 
one of the ships of war and sank seventeen of the 
galleons. Six galleons were captured, the treas- 
ure on board amounting to $13,000,000 in silver. 
The gold had already been landed. The remain- 
der of the treasure, amounting to about $30,000,- 
000, mainly in silver, lies at the bottom of Vigo 
Bay. 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


225 


“ Several attempts have been made to recover 
this treasure. In 1883 a San Francisco com- 
pany uncovered the Almirante , but they failed to 
find the treasure. In 1899, a French company 
worked on the same wreck, with a reported lack 
of success. (As Alexander Del Mar, an author- 
ity on the subject, remarks: ‘ Reports of unsuc- 
cess in treasure expeditions must not always be 
believed too freely.’) 

“ There is a great deal of treasure awaiting the 
successful hunter and diver in the Bay of Cam- 
peachy, on the west coast of Yucatan. When 
sacked for the third time by the buccaneers in 
1685, the captors brought into that port a richly 
laden Spanish galleon, but their prize profited 
them nothing, for the Spanish crew scuttled her 
and she sank into the bay, at a depth of fifty 
fathoms. 

“An interesting attempt to recover this was 
made by an American company. In 1886, a so- 
called ‘ steam submarine vessel ’ was invented 
and built in Boston. She sailed April 24, 1886, 
for the Bay of Campeachy, where an effort was to 
be made to secure the treasure. The boat failed 
to produce the expected results, and the expedi- 
tion came to nought. 


226 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ But privateering was not done with, yet. In 
1798, the British privateer barque, De Brask , 
cruising in the Spanish Main, captured two Span- 
ish vessels richly laden with gold and silver. Mak- 
ing her way to England, the De Brask came up 
past Key West and the Florida Straits, hugging 
the American coast to run north of the trade 
winds. Off Cape Hatteras a violent blow came 
on, and the De Brask and one of her prizes in tow, 
the La Plata , foundered near the Capes of the 
Delaware, after a gallant effort to weather the 
storm. The actual amount of the treasure so 
lost is not known. It has been estimated at from 
ten to forty millions of dollars. The wreck is 
said to lie in nine fathoms of water and five dif- 
ferent attempts have been made to secure it. In 
1887, the William P. Orr, a wrecking schooner, 
with a steam tug, experienced divers and modern 
equipment, made the attempt. That some treas- 
ure was recovered is known, but an official ac- 
counting was never given out and it is believed 
that the profits were small. 

“ More recently, in the nineteenth century, 
the Spanish vessel San Pedro de Alcantara was 
blown up in the Margarita Channel, between the 
islands of Cubagua and Coche, near Caracas, 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


227 


Venezuela. The vessel carried known treasure 
to the amount of $32,000,000 in gold doubloons 
and other treasure listed at $67,000,000 in all. 
Three attempts at recovery have been made: one 
by a Baltimore company, one by the Venezuelan 
Government, and one in 1877 by a New York 
company financed by Jacob Lorillard. The cur- 
rent runs strong in Margarita Channel, however, 
and all three efforts were without success. 

“Nor is it to be thought that wrecks lie always 
at distant and little-travelled points. In the East 
River, New York, not a hundred yards from 
shore, within sight of the bridges that span that 
stream and over which trolley cars roar continu- 
ally, lies the Hussar , a British man-o’-war, which 
was the paymaster’s vessel of the British navy 
during the American War of Independence. 
She had nearly $5,000,000 in British gold aboard. 

“All the foregoing makes no mention of the 
products of the gold-mines of Brazil, from which 
the doubloons, joes and demi-joes were coined, 
and which yielded the treasures of the Portu- 
guese fleets. The output of these mines, during 
the middle decades of the eighteenth century, was 
over $18,000,000 per year. The total product 
from 1670 to 1870 was approximately $1,100,- 


228 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


000,000. Of this sum, something under one- 
fourth never reached Portugal. 

“ With the discovery of gold in California by 
the 49’ers, the losses of treasure began again. 
The first of these was the wreck of the steamship 
Central America, lost off Cape Hatteras, with 
$2,400,000 in gold dust and nuggets. In 1862 
the American steamer Golden Gate was wrecked 
on the shores of Costa Rica with $1,500,000 in 
gold. The wreck is in shallow water, but where 
a heavy surf rolls continually. The Aunerican 
ship Phantom went down with $10,000,000 of 
California gold in 1862. The following year a 
Hamburg barque, George Sand, bound out from 
San Francisco, was wrecked in the China Sea 
with $13,000,000 in nuggets and gold dust. Soon 
after, the losses stopped, for, with the building of 
the transcontinental railroads, shipments of bul- 
lion from San Francisco by water ceased. Be- 
tween 1849 and 1869, however, the total loss in 
California gold in wrecked vessels was well over 
$60,000,000. 

“ Nor have the Australian gold mines failed to 
enrich the all-devouring maw of the sea. The 
first great treasure cargo from the gold mines of 
Australia was on the Madagascar , which left 


MASTERLESS GOLD 


229 


Melbourne in 1856 and was never heard of again. 
Her store of $3,000,000 is irrecoverable. Three 
years later, the Royal Charter with $4,000,000 in 
nuggets and dust, was wrecked on the coast of 
Wales within a day of her home port, and not 
only was all the treasure lost, but most of the 
passengers and crew. In 1866, the ship General 
Grant went down off the Auckland Islands with 
$15,000,000 in Australian gold. The list could 
be indefinitely extended. The total amount is 
even larger than the loss of California gold, and 
is estimated at $75,000,000. 

“ Losses from the South African gold fields 
have been less numerous, for the South Atlantic 
is freer for navigation and both winds and cur- 
rents are favorable. Yet some $30,000,000 of 
South African gold, also, lies at the bottom of 
the sea. Practically none of this will ever be 
found again. 

“ Such are a few of the items of masterless 
gold in the ocean depths, enough to make multi- 
millionaires of scores upon scores of men. And 
these figures do not even take into account the 
hundreds of vessels in whose coffers were stored 
smaller sums of hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

“ Nor is this yet all. Were it possible, by 


230 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


modern wrecking methods, to raise the vessels 
which lie within the hundred-fathom mark, the 
vast sums mentioned might be multiplied tenfold. 
It has been said that never a day passes upon the 
sea but that some ship is wrecked — whether it be 
an ocean giant such as the Titanic or an over- 
loaded Chinese junk with mat-sails. In the cen- 
tury 1820-1920 (including both naval and mer- 
cantile vessels), the losses in shipping are placed 
at fifteen billions of dollars ($ 15 , 000 , 000 , 000 ) , or 
almost as much as the Treasury of the United 
States has expended for all purposes during its 
entire history. 

“ The high-powered steamship has replaced 
the sailing-ship of earlier days, but in Lloyds’ 
and other great maritime insurance centres of the 
world, there still is posted a portentous list of 
ships under the gruesome word: 

“ ‘ Missing! ’ 

“ Adventure and peril are not yet past, and 
many a ship never reaches her home port. What 
has happened, no one can say. The sea guards 
her secrets.” 


Copyright , Curtis Publishing Co. 

Raising a Torpedoed Liner. 

Great pontoons, aided by rising tides, lift victim of ruthless submarine warfare from the sea-bottom. 
(From a painting by J. O. Todhal, reproduced by courtesy of the Ladies' Home Journal.) 





CHAPTER IX 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 

The expedition for the recovery of the treas- 
ure of the St. Jago de Almazova was organized 
on a very different scale from that of the brief 
run to Ghost Island on the chance of finding 
the pirates’ hulk. The Rose and the Molly Day , 
two of the staunchest schooners of the Black 
Fleet, chosen by the “Admiral,” and with every 
man on board picked personally by the old 
wrecker, accompanied the Moray. Twelve 
divers were aboard, with Csesar acting as Master 
Diver. Except for the three Voleys, Mark 
Hoveller and the engineers of the tug, every 
man on board the three vessels was a Bahaman 
negro. The old wrecker was a firm believer in 
their seamanship and loyalty. 

The information which had been handed down 
in the Voley family, with regard to the location 
of the St. Jago, was as definite as information 
several centuries old could be, which was not say- 
ing much. Moreover, the story had come down 
231 


232 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

through the lips of natives, and this added a 
further uncertainty. 

On their first night out, the “Admiral ” told 
the story of the loss of the St. Jago to Latimer, 
partly to please the boy and partly to reconstruct 
the situation in his own mind more clearly. 

“As ye’ll see, Lat,” he said, “ there’s more’n a 
bit o’ guesswork in findin’ her. We’ve decided. 
Son J erry an’ I, not to spend one penny more’n 
we got out o’ the pirates, on this search. Then, 
if we find nothin’, we’re no richer an’ no poorer’n 
we were before we started off for Ghost Island. 

“ The yarn o’ the St. Jago is something like 
this: 

“Ye remember, Son Jerry told Hoveller the 
story o’ the treasure fleet which sailed out o’ 
Santo Domingo, on July 3, 1502, defyin’ the 
warnin’ which Columbus had given. The fleet 
went out o’ Mona Passage an’ ran a bit to the 
west’ard to pick up a couple o’ galleons cornin’ 
from Isabella, the first port started by Columbus 
on the north side o’ Haiti. The galleons might 
ha’ got clear out to sea, but for that delay. 

“ Then come the hurricane, an’ ye know, Lat, 
how high at the bow an’ stern were those old 
Spanish galleons. Their leeway in a blow must 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


233 


ha’ been big! What’s more, they were too clumsy 
to lie close to the wind, an’ that was one reason 
why the privateers an’ buccaneers — most o’ them 
usin’ ships with a low freeboard, Dutch or Eng- 
lish built — were always able to get the weather 
gage o’ them. 

“ Now, the St. Jago was one o’ the bigger 
ships an’ her captain was standin’ well out to sea 
when the blow hit her. He saw one after an- 
other of his consort galleons turn turtle, or have 
their masts blown out o’ them an’ go driftin’ to- 
wards the reefs, the hurricane an’ the current 
bearin’ ’em along like flotsam. He wasn’t carin’ 
much for the lives o’ his men, wasn’t the cap’n o’ 
the St. Jago } but he had a lot o’ treasure aboard, 
an’ he figured that if he could beach his ship, 
there was a chance o’ recoverin’ some o’ the treas- 
ure afterwards. Leastways, it looks that way, 
judgin’ from what he did. 

“ Runnin’ up to a sandy island, near by, he 
finds himself up against a bar, with heavy surf 
a-rollin’ over it. Findin’ the water shoalin’ fast, 
he drops his hook, but the cable snaps like a piece 
o’ rope-yarn. He strikes the bar, goes over it 
without much damage, an’ drops the other an- 
chor. There’s a lee shore, ugly-lookin’, a cable’s 


234 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

length to leeward. He knows, if the St. Jago 
hits that, she’ll pound to pieces, so he sends a 
couple o’ men he can trust down into the hold to 
scuttle the ship, figurin’ that way, there’s a 
chance o’ savin’ something when the sea calms 
down. 

“ From the yam— the way it’s come down to 
us — just the officers an’ some picked men o’ the 
boats’ crews were in the secret, an’ these, at a 
given signal, gets out the galleon’s boats, scram- 
bles aboard ’em an’ makes for the shore. The 
surf’s runnin’ pretty high, but, spite o’ the hurri- 
cane, they lands safely, the boats bein’ badly 
smashed up, but not beyond repair. They’ve 
plenty o’ provisions an’ water, for the boat had 
been got ready in time, an’ they rig up a sail as 
some sort of a windbreak an’ wait for the gale 
to die down. 

“ The eye o’ the hurricane finds ’em there, an’ 
the Spanish cap’n, knowing that in an hour or 
two she’s a-goin’ to blow worse’n ever, tells his 
men to bury the water an’ the provisions in 
the sand, so s they won’t get blown or washed 
away, an’ puts out double guy-ropes to the 
windbreak, hitchin’ the guy-ropes to sand 
anchors.” 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


235 


“ That was pretty seamanship all round, 
Grap,” commented Latimer. 

“Ay, Son, the Spanish were good sailormen in 
those days. Considerin’ the vessels they had, an’ 
no charts, an’ poor navigatin’ instruments, there’s 
a lot o’ credit cornin’ to ’em. Many a man wi’ a 
Master’s Certificate to-day couldn’t do half as 
well. 

“ If the hurricane had jest blown itself out, the 
way they generally do, the Spanish cap’n would 
ha’ been all right. But, a few minutes after the 
whirl o’ the opposite side o’ the hurricane struck 
’em, along comes an enormous wave — a tidal 
wave it must ha’ been — an’ sweeps clear over the 
island, just rippin’ away the windbreak like it 
was made o’ straw an’ washin’ every single one o’ 
the officers an’ boats’ crews into the sea. That 
was the end o’ them ! 

“ Now, aboard the St. Jago which had been 
scuttled, there had been a hundred or more Carib 
Indians who were bein’ taken to Spain as slaves, 
same as they generally did in Columbus’ times. 
When the sailors aboard the galleon saw their 
officers desertin’ ’em, wi’ all the boats, they rushed 
below an’ freed the slaves.” 

“ Why, Grap? ” 


236 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ Hard to say why,” the old wrecker answered. 
“ Maybe it was for humanity, though that was 
rare enough in those days; more likely, it was be- 
cause the sailors had a frantic hope that wi’ eveiy 
man on board workin’ at top speed they could 
throw together a raft to save themselves from the 
ship which was sinkin’ under their feet. There 
wasn’t time, though, for the St. Jago went down 
sudden soon after she’d been scuttled. 

“ The Caribs, who can swim like sharks, didn’t 
wait for any raft. When they felt the galleon 
goin’ down, they jumped into the sea. This was 
durin’ the time when the eye o’ the hurricane was 
passin’ over. They knew better’n to try an’ land 
on the island where the Spanish officers had gone, 
an’ started to swim with wind an’ current any- 
where it would take ’em. Some were drowned, 
some eaten by sharks, an’ only four o’ the Caribs 
managed to get as far as a little cay, some three 
or four miles to the lee— judgin’ distances 
roughly — on which some mangrove bushes grew. 

“ They’d just about got there when the tidal 
wave hit them. The Caribs ducked an’ twined 
their bodies in an’ out o’ the mangrove roots. 

“ The wall o’ water struck! 

“ It roared over their heads, cuttin’ off the tops 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


237 


o’ the mangrove bushes like they had been 
chopped with an axe, but the roots, deeply sub- 
merged, stood firm. When the wave subsided, 
three out o’ the four Caribs freed ’emselves an’ 
came up to the top, gaspin’.” 

“ Great work! ” cried Latimer, his eyes spark- 
ling. 

“Ay, there’s more sense in natives’n most white 
folks think. They were safe, all right, but there 
wasn’t nothin’ to eat on that cay, an’ no water. 
They waited a day or so, until the hurricane 
passed by an’ the sea went down, an’ then swam 
the three miles back to the island where the St. 
Jago had been scuttled. They had a notion that 
the Spaniards would ha’ been washed away, an’ 
they had seen ’em diggin’ the water an’ provisions 
into the sand. 

“ Sure enough, when they got there, they 
found the stores. White men, likely, would ha’ 
stayed on the island until they starved to death 
or started to eat each other. The Caribs had too 
much gumption for that. They picked up some 
bits o’ wreckage which had been washed ashore 
and lashed ’em together to make a raft, not to get 
on themselves, but to put the food an’ water on. 
Swimmin’ didn’t worry ’em none. 


238 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Startin’ right off, they launched the raft on 
the lee side o’ the island, dropped into the water 
behind her, an’ swam easily wi’ the current, push- 
ing the raft afore them. Accordin’ to their story, 
it took ’em half a day, a night, an’ all the next 
day, swimmin’ steady, an’ then they reached 
Great Inagua Island (the southernmost of the 
Bahama Group). That was settled by Caribs, 
too, an’ the survivors stayed there, an’ their de- 
scendants are there now. 

“ The yarn o’ the St. Jago has been handed 
down from generation to generation o’ the na- 
tives — like all Indians they’re great on spinnin’ 
yarns — an’ the name o’ the ship is known because 
it was branded on the water-keg which the Caribs 
had dug out o’ the sand. 

“ My grandfather, * ’Ristocrat Voley,’ first 
heard the yarn when he was salvagin’ a wreck on 
Little Inagua. When he got there, he found 
that the Carib an’ Black wreckers were there 
first. Next day, the Key Westers came along, 
an’ not only claimed a share, but wanted to take 
all the Black Fleet had found. They’ve got dif- 
ferent ideas about negroes in the States’n we 
have. Well, ‘ ’Ristocrat ’ wouldn’t stand for it, 
an’ stuck up for the Caribs an’ Blacks. In re- 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


239 


turn, the natives told him the yarn o’ the St. 
Jago. An’ that’s all there is to it.” 

“ It’s not very precise, is it, Grap? ” 

The old wrecker snorted. 

“What d’ye expect? Can ye see a Carib 
makin’ a chart with correct latitude an’ longitude 
an’ all the bearin’s and soundin’s marked! What 
d’ye get out of it yerself ? ” 

Latimer pulled himself together, for he real- 
ized that this was, in some sort, a test. 

“ Well, Grap,” he answered thoughtfully, “ it 
seems that the St. Jago was sunk off an island, 
protected by a bar, somewhere to the east’ard of 
Great Inagua. I don’t see much more.” 

“ How far to the east’ard? ” 

The boy reflected. 

“About thirty hours’ swim.” Then he added, 
hastily, “ Oh, yes, and there’s the current to be 
added, too.” 

The “Admiral ” nodded. 

“Now ye’re gettin’ to it,” he responded. 
“ The first thing to find out is the direction o’ the 
current, an’ the general direction o’ the wind 
after a hurricane, an’ ye know, Lat, hurricanes at 
a certain time o’ the year follow pretty nearly 
always the same course.” 


240 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ I know.” 

“ Then there’s the speed o’ the swimmin’. 
They’d be takin’ it easy, for it’s a long swim an’ 
they were pushin’ the small raft ahead o’ them. 
Say two miles an hour or a little better. Now 
the current east o’ Inagua an’ makin’ for the 
Wind’ard Passage has a varyin’ speed o’ between 
one and three-quarters to three miles an hour, 
dependin’ where ye strike it. Allow two miles an 
hour for that. Allow a mile, roughly, for lee- 
way with the wind, though that’s a bit much. 
That’s somewhere about five miles, altogether, or 
a hundred an’ fifty miles in thirty hours. Then, 
the further out to sea ye get, the slower becomes 
the current. 

“ Durin’ the night, likely, the natives didn’t 
swim at all, but jest drifted. Allowin’ for all 
this, they might ha’ been as near to Inagua as a 
hundred miles. It’s safe to say that the spot 
from which the Caribs started wasn’t more’n one 
hundred and fifty miles from Great Inagua an’ 
not less’n one hundred miles. 

“ Now for the direction o’ the current. Out 
beyond Silver Bank there’s a pile o’ small shoals 
an’ these change the current a bit. Between Sil- 
ver Bank and the Wind’ard Passage she runs 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 241 

Sou’-Sou’-West and north o’ Silver Bank about 
Sou’-by-West. There’s been some changes in 
the shoals, judgin’ by ol’ charts, an’ I’ve taken 
these into account, too. Takin’ it by an’ large, 
I’m figurin’ on a location about one hundred and 
twenty miles East-by-Nor’-a-quarter-Nor’ from 
the east coast o’ Great Inagua.” 

“Why!” cried Latimer, in delight, “that 
ought to be as easy to find as pie ! All we’ve got 
to do is to sail there and find the two islands ! ” 

“Ye run ahead like a two-masted schooner 
wing-and-wing afore a gale!” growled the old 
wrecker, reprovingly. “ In three hundred years, 
cays like that can change. There may be a grove 
o’ palms on the one an’ the other be cut down to a 
bank o’ sand. I reckon on neither, for the latest 
Admiralty charts don’t show nothing above water 
in that direction. But we’ll find her, Latimer, 
don’t ye worry ! ” 

In all this Captain Jerry Voley had nothing to 
say. He accounted himself a first-rate salver, 
and with reason. Certainly, no man on the Ba- 
hamas could handle even a tiny tug with the sure- 
ness and skill he showed when he made the big 
Moray wind in and out of narrow channels and 
through openings in reefs which would appear 


242 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


dangerous to a two-oared skiff. But he had not 
inherited that extraordinary intuition of reefs 
and shoals which the old wrecker possessed. 

The negroes on the Bahamas, indeed, had a 
superstitious belief in the “Admiral’s ” powers, 
and declared that he “ done sho’ had shark’s eyes 
an’ could see in the water.” 

The “Admiral ” was, to tell the truth, more at 
home with sail than with steam. He stayed 
aboard the Moray until near the supposed site of 
the wreck and then had himself transferred to the 
Molly Day , the smaller of the two schooners, to 
the huge pride of the negro crew, who fairly wor- 
shipped him. Latimer accompanied his grand- 
father. 

Poring over a chart he had made himself, the 
old wrecker sat on a rough stool near the lee quar- 
ter rail of the schooner — it tired the aged sea-dog 
to stand — watching the color of the water, and 
noting the hail of the leadsman. All day long, 
the lead was hove continually. 

Half a cable’s length astern, and the same dis- 
tance to windward, the Rose followed. Another 
half-cable’s length astern and to windward, the 
Moray brought up the rear. A system of flag sig- 
nals had been arranged to report the soundings. 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


243 


Mark Hoveller was at the signal halliards of the 
Rose > Caesar at those of the Moray , Captain 
Voley himself being at the tug’s wheel. Latimer 
stood on the weather quarter of the Molly Day , 
calling the signals to his grandfather, who plot- 
ted them on his large-scale chart. 

The first, the second and the third day passed. 
Each evening, early, the three vessels ran to the 
nearest good anchorage and dropped anchor. 
The search was resumed at daybreak. 

Shortly before noon on the fourth day, the 
water under the Molly Day shoaled rapidly. 
She was creeping along at a snail’s pace, under 
shortened sail despite the light breeze, when the 
“Admiral ” roared: 

“ Hard down! ” 

The wheel spun, the schooner luffed up into 
the wind, her jibs shaking, and the mainsheet was 
hauled aft. The second schooner followed suit. 
The indicator on the Moray rang to “ Stop! ” 

Latimer knew better than to ask questions, but 
he wondered at his grandfather’s actions. Here 
was nothing but open sea. 

“ Signal the Moray to close in, Son,” came the 
order. 

The flags ran up, and the Moray , hardly 


244 THE WRECK*HUNTERS 


turning over her screws, edged up to the Molly 
Day . 

“ Three miles Sou’ west-by- West-half -West,” 
bellowed the “Admiral,” “an’, Son Jerry, 
sound as ye go! ” 

The captain of the Moray, who had stuck his 
head out of the chart-house window, nodded in 
understanding, and sheered off. 

Meantime, the Rose was hailed, and both 
schooners dropped their anchors. The boats 
were got out, and, under instructions delivered in 
the old wrecker’s stentorian voice, the boats’ 
crews sounded patiently and persistently every 
foot of the shoal. 

Nothing was found. 

“ Grap,” suggested Latimer, a little timidly, 
“ if the current has changed direction, mightn’t it 
have changed speed, too? Mightn’t it have run 
faster or slower than it does now? ” 

“Mighty little, if any,” the “Admiral” ex- 
plained. “ Direction’ll shift, dependin’ on a lot 
o’ things, mainly the lie o’ shoals an’ the nature o’ 
the bottom. But speed, Lat, won’t vary so much. 
This here North Equatorial Current begins ’way 
over near Africa. Sure, she’ll race faster through 
a channel, but the back water on the lee of an 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


245 


island’ll about equalize it in the long run. 
Wouldn’t be more than an eighth of a knot dif- 
ference, at best.” 

“ But where’s the island, Grap? ” 

Grimly, the old wrecker pointed downwards. 

“ You mean it’s below the sea? ” 

“ I was figurin’ on it as likely,” was the reply. 
“ If a sand-bank hasn’t any palms or mangroves 
to hold it together, an’ isn’t protected by a coral 
reef, what’s to keep it from bein’ washed away? ” 
“ What makes you so sure that there wasn’t 
any coral on the island? ” 

“Use yer head!” retorted the old wrecker. 
“ If there’d been a coral reef around the cay, 
would the Spanish cap’n have picked it as a soft 
place to lay his ship on? ” 

This was unanswerable and Latimer held his 
tongue. 

Presently the Moray came back, and as soon as 
she got within hailing distance, Captain Voley 
called: 

“ Small mangrove cay, bearing a few min- 
utes west of West-Sou’-West, three-and-a-half 
fathom shoal about half-way over.” 

“ Drop the hook an’ send yer boat! ” 

The Moray anchored, and the tug’s boat joined 


246 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


those of the two schooners in a most searching 
series of soundings, every variation being mega- 
phoned to the old wrecker, who plotted them in 
detail on his large-scale chart. 

Night came with no apparent result, but, 
though the “Admiral ” had nothing to say, after 
supper he burst forth with another verse of his 
wrecker song: 

“ ‘Full are the lockers o’ Davy Jones, 

Bustin’ beyond all measure, 

I’ll make his share all the skulls an’ bones, 

An’ keep for my share the treasure.’ ” 

By which infallible sign, Latimer recognized 
that the old wrecker was by no means disheart- 
ened by the day’s proceedings. 

At daybreak, next morning, all the boats were 
out. There was no need to tell the negroes that 
something was in the air. The confident manner 
of the “Admiral ” stimulated endeavor. 

“ Going to find her to-day, Grap? ” queried 
Latimer, surprised at the old wrecker’s assur- 
ance. 

“ Not goin’ to look for her yet, Lat,” was the 
surprising answer. 

So indeed it seemed, for, that day, the “Ad- 


* 



Courtesy of World's Work. 

Up from Davy Jones’ Locker. 

The Rlairmore , freed from the sand by a fleet of pontoon barges. 



Courtesy of World's Work. 

Heeled Over, but Afloat. 

The wreck in San Francisco Harbor, being towed to a ship-yard for repairs. 



The 13,000 ton liner St. Paul lying on her side the day after 

SHE TURNED OVER. 


A 



Pontoons and A. frames pulling the great steamer to an even 


KEEL. 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


247 


miral ” kept the boats sounding steadily, but on a 
long outward curve, and Latimer noticed that, as 
his grandfather plotted the soundings on the 
chart, the bank below their keels took on the out- 
lines of an island partly closed by a bar. 

Yet, so far as positive results, the day seemed 
to yield nothing. 

That night, after supper, the “ Admiral” 
spoke. 

“ Get your divin’ rig in shape, Son J erry,” he 
said ; “ there’s a chance.” 

“A small one, I’m afraid, Father,” declared 
the captain of the Moray; “ if the St. Jago % is 
where you think she is, she’ll be buried in sand.” 

“ She may be, an’ again, she mayn’t,” the old 
wrecker replied. “ Judgin’ by the soundin’s, the 
current’s scourin’ a bit. An’ if she’s scourin’, as 
ye know, anything hard, like a rock or a ship’s 
hull, ’ll be scraped clear as a whistle on one side 
an’ filled up on the other.” 

But the “ Admiral ” did not sing that night, 
and Latimer judged that while his grandfather 
was satisfied that he had found the place, he was 
not so sure of being able to recover the treasure 
from the wreck. 

Next morning, the pumping boat was got out, 


248 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

and then Latimer learned for the first time the 
need of the twelve divers. At six o’clock, sharp, 
two men went down, examining the ground with 
the most minute care. They stayed down an 
hour, and another two went down in their place. 
So, in turns, all morning. At midday, the divers 
who had been the first to descend, made another 
trip. Thus, for twelve hours, two divers were 
constantly at work. 

That evening the “Admiral ” was grimly si- 
lent. More than half of the “ bay ” — as the old 
wrecker had charted it between the sunken banks 
— had been examined, and nothing found. 

The same programme was carried out the next 
morning, when, in the middle of one of the 
hour spells, the two divers came up to the 
surface. They gesticulated, and pointed down 
below. 

“ There’s a mast stickin’ up out of the sand,” 
burst forth one of the divers, as soon as the front 
window of his helmet was opened, “ an’ she’s sho’ 
an ol’ ship, sah, for the truck’s like nothin’ we 
never see afore! ” 

“ How far does it stick up out of the sand, 
Sam? ” queried Captain Jerry, who, as always, 
was supervising the work on the pumping-boat. 


249 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 

“ ’Bout twice as high’s I is, sah! ” answered the 
negro. 

“ Upright, or leaning much? ” 

“ About this much, sah! ” was the reply, and 
the diver motioned with his hand to about ten 
degrees from the perpendicular. 

The captain of the Moray shook his head. 

“ She’s buried pretty deep, then,” he said 
lugubriously. “ I’ll go and talk to the ‘Ad- 
miral.’ ” 

Latimer, who had remained in the pumping- 
boat, did not hear the conference, but the captain 
of the Moray returned, looking brighter. 

“ Go down again, Sam,” he said, “ and see if 
you don’t come to a deeper place a fathom or two 
to the east’ard. The ‘ Admiral’s ’ chart shows a 
place with deeper soundings right there, and the 
current may have been scouring. If you find it, 
scoop away the sand a little, and see if the gal- 
leon’s hull lies there.” 

The window of the helmet was closed and the 
two divers sank. They returned in a few min- 
utes. 

“ It’s deeper there, sah, an’ we think we can 
feel the hull. But it’ll take a pow’ful lot o’ dig- 
gin’, sah! ” 


250 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ I’ll go down myself and take a look at her/’ 
said Captain Jerry. 

He greatly disliked going down in a diver’s 
dress, for he got violent headaches, but the case 
was so important he felt compelled to see the ves- 
sel with his own eyes. He did not stay more 
than a few minutes, however, and came up again. 

“ The ship’s there, all right,” he said, “ and 
you two men get the prize money we offered for 
first sight of her. But you’re right, Sam, she’ll 
take a powerful lot of digging. Send Caesar 
here!” 

The Master Diver came from one of the 
schooners, where he had been sleeping since his 
last dive, and, in turn, descended. Over half an 
hour elapsed before he came to the surface. 

“ Well? ” queried Captain Voley, as soon as 
the negro was free to speak. 

Caesar shook his head. 

“ I’s afraid, sah,” he said, “ it’s a-goin’ to cost 
more’n it’s worth. She’s under two an’ maybe 
three fathoms o’ sand, all over.” 

“ Drop a kedge with a buoy,” ordered the mas- 
ter of the Moray. “Knock off, men. We’ll 
have to figure out what to do.” 

Dinner was a silent meal. Captain Jerry had 


251 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 

given the full details of the discovery to the “Ad- 
miral,” and the old wrecker found himself 
stumped. 

“ I could do it,” said Captain Jerry, thought- 
fully, “ if we had some of those sand-pumps the 
big fellows use.” 

“ Get ’em! ” snapped the “Admiral.” 

“ It wouldn’t be any use, Father,” was the re- 
ply. “We haven’t power enough to drive them. 
There are only two firms in the United States 
that have them. Of course, there are plenty in 
England, France, and Germany, but that’s a long 
way from here.” 

“ How about relays of divers movin’ the 
sand? ” 

The tug’s captain shook his head. 

“No use,” he said, “ a thousand divers couldn’t 
get the sand far enough away so the current 
couldn’t drift it back again. It means dredges 
or sand-pumps.” He paused and looked at his 
father. “ If you wanted to give Chapitt 
shares ” 

The old wrecker growled. Chapitt was the 
head of an enormous wrecking company with sta- 
tions at New York, Baltimore, and Jamaica. He 
had always wanted the Yoleys, father and son, to 


252 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


become a branch of the great company, or at least 
enter into some form of partnership. But the 
“Admiral ” always insisted on being independ- 
ent. 

Still, old as he was, the “Admiral ” was not 
beyond seeing himself compelled to change his 
mind. He knew, well enough, that if Jerry 
Voley took the ground that salvage was impos- 
sible with the equipment at their disposal, it must 
be so. 

“ What terms can ye get? ” he asked. 

“ Good ones, I expect,” said the salver cheer- 
fully, delighted at this sign of his father’s relent- 
ing. “ They’re so anxious to get in with us and 
add the Bahamas to their string of stations, that 
they’ll jump at almost any chance.” 

Latimer listened with all his ears. Like his 
father, he was anxious to get in touch with a big- 
ger company and to do bigger work. It had 
been a Chapitt salvage operation which had first 
inspired him with the desire to be a modern 
wrecking engineer, and, the last time Mr. Chapitt 
had been in Nassau, he had taken an interest in 
the boy. That might have been merely business 
policy, because the lad was one of the famous 
Voleys, but Latimer remembered it. 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 


253 


“ Well,” answered the “Admiral ” slowly, 
after a pause, “ now that we’ve located the St. 
Jago an’ found she can’t be salvaged without 
help, I s’pose we’ve got to have that help. Ye’re 
sure it can’t be done without? ” 

“ I wouldn’t waste money even trying it! ” the 
salver returned decidedly. 

This was final. 

“ Have it yer own way, then,” growled the old 
wrecker. “ Me, I’d sooner leave every bar o’ 
gold in the bottom o’ the sea’n hitch up wi’ these 
new-fangled notions. But we can’t help our- 
selves, now, ’specially since we’ve got Mark Hov- 
eller on shares. Then the Voleys have always 
been set on gettin’ up that treasure, an’ I don’t 
want to be the one to quit. I don’t hanker after 
leaving the St. Jago though, now I’ve found her. 
I’ll stand by. Ye go back to Nassau in the 
Moray an’ see what ye can do.” 

Captain Jerry shrugged his shoulders pro- 
testingly. 

“ What is it now? ” snapped the old man. 

“ You know Chapitt,” was the reply. “ He 
and I get along well enough in a way, and that’s 
about all. He’s getting to be an old man, and 
he always talks to me as if I were about ten years 


254 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

old. Big business of that kind, he’ll only do with 
you.” 

The salver’s suggestion was a shrewd one, for 
if there was one point above another on which 
the old wrecker prided himself, it was his activ- 
ity despite his advanced age. The idea that 
Chapitt, the biggest wrecker in the United 
States, would do nothing without dealing with 
him personally, flattered the “ Admiral’s ” 
vanity. 

“ I’ll not leave the St, Jago alone, now we’ve 
found her,” he said, but his tone was less manda- 
tory than usual. 

“ Leave the Molly Day at anchor here,” sug- 
gested Captain Jerry. “ Latimer can stay on 
board her, and Caesar. As for the schooner her- 
self, the crew can handle her as well as any bunch 
of men in the Bahamas. Then, if anything leaks 
out, we’ve prior claim. It will work out all right 
that way.” 

So it was arranged, Mark Hoveller also ask- 
ing to be allowed to stay. This request was 
readily granted, for the sailor, despite his super- 
stitious ideas, had shown himself competent on 
board ship. And, as the captain of the Moray 
had said, the crew of the Molly Day — every man 


THE SCUTTLED SHIP 255 

a wrecker born and bred, — could handle the 
schooner in any weather. 

“ Lat,” were the old wrecker’s final instruc- 
tions, “ if any one comes up while we’re away — 
Talk ! If they start any funny business, such as 
sending divers over the side — Fight! Ye’re a 
Voley an’ the crew’ll stand by ye to the last.” 

“ Orders are orders, Grap,” responded the 
boy. “I’ll stick!” 

So the Moray steamed away, followed by the 
Rose , leaving Latimer and Mark Hoveller 
aboard the Molly Day , with Caesar and the 
wrecker crew. 


CHAPTER X 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 

Once again Latimer and Mark Hoveller 
were thrown together, the more so as Captain 
Jerry had warned his son to try to keep Mark 
from relating his harrowing tales of the sea to 
the negro crew. 

“ Don’t forget, Lat,” he had said, “ that 
there’s only one thing that the best ship’s officer 
can’t fight — and that’s panic! ” 

So, in order to keep Mark from talking to the 
men, Latimer kept beside him most of the time. 

Two evenings after the Moray had started 
back to Nassau, as Mark and the boy were loll- 
ing on the quarter rail, the sailor remarked mys- 
teriously: 

“ ’Tis the dark o’ the moon to-night.” 

“ What about it? ” retorted Latimer, care- 
lessly. 

“ ’Tis always on the dark o’ the night that 

phantom ships appear.” 

256 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 257 


“ You don’t believe in that nonsense, do you, 
Mark? ” queried the lad, scornfully. 

The sailor spat out his quid, then turning, 
fixed a reproachful glance on his questioner, and 
said slowly : 

“ ’Tis hard not to believe in a thing yo’ve 
seen! ” 

“ What, have you really seen the Flying 
Dutchman? ” asked Latimer eagerly. “ Spin 
us the yarn, Mark! ” 

“ Maybe yo’ don’t believe in it at all ! ” 

Latimer hesitated to avow his skepticism too 
frankly. He had done so, once or twice before, 
and Mark had refused to talk. Now, waiting 
for the return of the Moray , time hung heavy on 
the boy’s hands, and the story would while away 
an hour. Besides, he had never met any one who 
declared that he had actually seen the ghostly 
craft, though he had heard the story. 

“ Well, Mark,” the boy answered doubtfully, 
“ I don’t know much about it. I’ve heard peo- 
ple talk about the Phantom Ship, but never be- 
fore met any one who had seen one. I thought 
it was mostly a yarn.” 

The sailor shook his head. 

“ There ain’t a port yo’ can sail into,” he an- 


258 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

swered, “ where yo’ won’t find some one what has 
seen a phantom ship. An’ there ain’t just one 
such craft, yo’ understand, there’s several, or 
maybe it’s the same one takin’ different shapes. 
I reckon I’ve heard full fifty stories, an’ never 
two the same.” 

“ That makes it look a bit like imagination, 
doesn’t it? ” suggested Latimer. 

“ A ship’s log don’t lie,” retorted Mark, “ least 
o’ all, the log of a British man-o’-war. An’ when 
that log says that a lot o’ folk on board saw it, 
includin’ cap’n, officers an’ crew, it asks for be- 
lievin’, don’t it? ” 

“ Did that happen? ” queried the boy, im- 
pressed in spite of himself. 

“ Ay, it did. H. M. S. Bacchante , cruisin’ in 
the Atlantic with H . M. S. Tourmaline and 
H. M. S. Cleopatra as consorts, reported her on 
their logs, and the two sons of the Prince of 
Wales — him who was afterwards King Edward 
VII — an’ who were aboard, wrote about it in 
their diary. I learned the entry by heart, oncet. 
It went something this fashion: 

“ ‘ At 4 a. m. the Flying Dutchman crossed 
our bows. A strange red light, as of a phantom 
ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 259 


masts, spars and sails of a brig, two hundred 
yards distant, stood out in strong relief as she 
came up. The lookout man on the forecastle 
reported her as close on the port bow, where also 
the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly 
saw her, as did also the quarter-deck midship- 
man, who was sent forward at once to the fore- 
castle, but, on arriving there, no vestige nor any 
sign whatever of any material ship was to be 
seen either near or right away to the horizon, the 
night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen 
persons altogether saw her, but whether it was 
Van Diemen or the Flying Dutchman } or who, 
she must remain unknown. The Tourmaline and 
the Cleopatra , who were sailing on our starboard 
bow, flashed to ask whether we had seen the 
strange red light.’ ” 1 

“ That’s queer,” commented Latimer thought- 

1 The author, when at sea while a lad, was on a ship where a 
phantom vessel was sighted. She was reported by the lookout 
man as a single-topsail brig, was running in the eye of the wind 
at fully twelve knots, but there was no “ bone ” or ripple at her 
cutwater. The second mate and the man at the wheel saw the 
phantom also. All agreed that there were three men on deck 
beside the helmsman, who was in oilskins with a bright red cap 
“ which looked afire.” The watch below was called up, the writer 
among them, but though these three men said they could see her 
clearly and that she was coming nearer, the phantom was invisi- 
ble to any one else. That voyage, it may be mentioned, was not 
attended by any especial bad luck. — F. R.-W. 


260 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


fully. “ I hadn’t any idea that there were any 
official records.” 

“ It wouldn’t be hard to find a thousand men- 
tions o’ phantom ships in the logs o’ cruises,” 
declared Mark, “ an’, as I told yo’, there’s 
hardly a port out o’ which sailors hail that 
hasn’t its own story.” 

“ I’ve never heard but the one tale of the Phan- 
tom Ship,” responded Latimer, “ and that wasn’t 
a bit like the yarn of the Bacchante .” 

“An’ how did yo’ heard it, Young Master? 
An’ what was it, if I may ask? ” 

“ I heard it from ‘ Copper-Face ’ Phil, father 
of that Jules you met in Key West and who 
persuaded you to run the Ocean Fay on Little 
Isaacs Reef,” answered Latimer, meaningly. 
“ Since you seem to be interested in such yarns 
I’ll tell it to you, so far as I can remember it. 
It went something like this, as ‘Copper-Face’ 
Phil told it to me, two winters past: 

“ A good many years ago, he said, there sailed 
on the seas between Holland and the Dutch East 
Indies an old Dutch captain named Vander- 
decken. He had no respect for God, for the 
saints, nor for anything else. On one voyage, 
‘ Copper-Face ’ Phil said, Vanderdecken had 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 261 


killed a Catholic priest, in a fit of drunken rage; 
and, on another, he had thrown overboard a 
Protestant minister who was reproving him for 
singing wild songs before the women passen- 
gers. 

“ At last came the fatal voyage. Vander- 
decken and a shipload of passengers started out 
from the Hague. All went well until they got 
as far south as the latitude of Cape of Good 
Hope. There it came on to blow great guns. 
The bluff -bowed Dutch craft did her best to get 
around the stormy cape, but weeks passed in a 
vain beating to and fro. The passengers sick- 
ened from the ceaseless tossing and the mouldy 
food. The crew mutinied. But Yanderdecken 
shot one of the complaining passengers, and 
hurled a marlin-spike at the ringleader of the 
mutineers so that the steel point pierced his skull. 
After that, every one let the skipper alone. Not 
that I blame them much ! ” Latimer commented. 
And he went on with the yarn: 

“ The storm grew worse and worse. Never 
had been seen such a tempest. But the louder 
the gale howled, the louder the captain laughed; 
the more the spray flew, the more he drank. He 
tried to drown the thunder by shouting ribald 


262 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


songs at the sky, and held his pipe up to the 
lightning flash to get a light. 

“ The weeks passed into months. The food 
became uneatable. At last there came a day 
when the drinking water was all gone. 

“ That very day, a sailboat came out from the 
lee of Table Mountain. Her hull and her sails 
were shining white, as though the sunlight were 
beating full on her, though the sky was black 
with storm. A voice hailed from the boat, tell- 
ing Vanderdecken that he was lost unless he put 
into Table Bay. Then, so ‘ Copper-Face ’ Phil 
said, Vanderdecken replied: 

“ ‘ May I be eternally condemned if I do, 
though I beat about here till the Day of Judg- 
ment! 9 

“ And the little cabin-boy, who was bringing 
the captain his schnapps, piped up: 

“‘Me, too!’ 

“ At that, the tempest raged all the fiercer 
and a black squall came rushing, in which the 
shining sailboat disappeared. 

“ The day following, a Sunday, as it chanced, 
when all on board were half -dead with thirst, a 
luminous cloud came over the ship and a huge 
figure descended on the poop. ‘ Copper-Face ’ 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 263 


Phil declared that the apparition was God, the 
Father, Himself,” Latimer commented, “ but 
when I protested at that, he said that he had 
heard others tell that it was the Holy Spirit, or 
St. Elmo, the patron saint of sailors. Every 
one on board, even the helmsman, fell to his 
knees on the deck. 

“ Not Vanderdecken, though. The tough old 
shell-back did not stop puffing at his porcelain 
pipe, nor did he raise his cap when the figure 
spoke. 

44 4 Captain Vanderdecken,’ said the appari- 
tion, amazed at this blasphemous insolence, 4 you 
are out of your head ! ’ 

44 4 I’m the captain of this ship,’ said the obsti- 
nate Dutchman, 4 and I didn’t ask you aboard. 
Get off, or I’ll blow your brains out ! ’ 

44 4 Heed my words ’ the apparition be- 

gan, but the captain interrupted him violently: 

44 4 I’ll heed nothing from an uninvited boarder 
on my ship ! ’ he roared, cocked one of his pistols 
and fired at the figure. The pistol burst, and 
the bullet pierced his own arm. 

44 Then the apparition said: 

44 4 From this hour, Vanderdecken, you are ac- 
cursed! You shall sail forever, from Cape of 


264 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


Good Hope to Cape Horn, and never, till the 
Day of Doom, shall you round either cape. You 
shall try to put into many a port and harbor, 
but never a one shall know your anchor. When 
you smoke your pipe, fumes of sulphur shall fill 
your mouth. You shall drink gall at all times, 
and chew red-hot iron for your quid. You shall 
keep a watch that will last forever, and never 
sleep, for when you close your eyes, your eye- 
lids shall scorch as if they were burning coals. 
Never shall you have a calm sea or fine weather, 
but the spindrift shall blow over your decks 
eternally and the tempest shall shriek in your 
rigging. The sight of your ship shall be a curse 
to storm-tossed sailors, and every ship that 
sights you and suffers because of you shall add 
to your punishment. All sailor shirkers, rogues 
dying under the cat-o’-nine-tails, and sea-cow- 
ards shall become your crew. They shall torture 
you; and you, them. In torment shall you toil 
uselessly and toss ceaselessly on a stormy sea till 
the end of time. As for the boy, he shall have 
a horned forehead, a tiger’s jaw and a skin 
rougher than a fish’s scales, and, as he runs to 
do your errands his feet shall be raw and bleed- 
ing and never heal. Even if you or he ever re- 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 265 


pents, your doom will last for a thousand years 
after your repentance.’ 

“ ‘ I defy you! ’ said Vanderdecken, stoutly. 

“ The apparition disappeared in the luminous 
cloud, and, at the same instant, Vanderdecken 
found himself alone on the ship’s deck, saving 
only for the boy, disfigured as predicted. The 
passengers and the crew had disappeared with 
the figure into the cloud. 

“ Since then,” continued Latimer, “ so ‘ Cop- 
per-Face ’ Phil said, the Flying Dutchman sails 
the stormy seas from Cape of Good Hope to 
Cape Horn. Tempests and thunderbolts howl 
and crash around him. His craft is seen at the 
entrance of many a port, but though the skies 
be clear and the wind fair, a black vapor hangs 
ever over the Flying Dutchman as she pitches 
and rolls in a mist of spume and finally disap- 
pears. 

“ Many a ship does Vanderdecken hail and try 
to send aboard a letter. But if a captain takes 
and reads that letter he becomes a madman, his 
ship turns turtle and sinks outright with all 
hands. Even to touch the letter means death. 
Those who have heard Vanderdecken’s hail fall 
sick, and those who answer it will die. The sailor 


266 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

who even points a finger at the accursed craft 
will find his arm paralyzed. No one can help 
the doomed vessel or any one on board her. And 
so will it be forever. 

“ That’s the yarn of Vanderdecken’s ship, 
Mark,” the boy concluded, “ the way that ‘ Cop- 
per-Face ’ Phil told it to me.” 

Ay, ’ said the sailor, “ an’ he told it true.” 

“ But that,” objected Latimer, “ isn’t any- 
thing like the entry in the log of the Bacchante! " 

“ No,” agreed Mark, “ what the navy men saw 
is more like the phantom ship o’ Dahul.” 

And who was Dahul? ” came the query. 

“ He was another o’ these skippers on Ships 
o’ Doom. I’ll give yo’ the story as it was told 
to me: 

“ This Dahul is an Algerian pirate, an Arab 
himself, so they say, an’ so wild an’ dangerous 
that when he’s on deck there isn’t one o’ the 
crew dares turn his eyes aft. His is a black 
an ugly record. But he goes too far, like many 
a man has done. Once he captures a brig, 
sailin’ from Barcelona to Palermo, kills the crew 
an tortures the passengers. There’s a priest on 
board what threatens to curse him, an’ Dahul 
nails him to the mast. There’s life enough 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 267 

left in the priest to curse Dahul afore he 
dies. 

“ After that, everything goes wrong with 
Dahul. But he defies the priest and his curse, 
defies the Almighty an’ takes the Fiend for a 
helmsman. Then prizes come along thick an’ 
plenty an’ Dahul becomes rich. He wants to 
leave the sea, but the Fiend holds him to his con- 
tract. Burstin’ with rage, Dahul heaves up a 
capstan bar an’ strikes at the Fiend at the wheel. 
That gives the Fiend power over him, for, as 
yo’ know, it’s a sea-crime to strike a man at the 
wheel. 

“ Since that day, the brig carries a full crew 
o’ sailor souls that belong to the Fiend. She 
brings storm, fire an’ mutiny wherever she goes. 
Food never comes to her galley, nor sleep to her 
bunks. She carries neither fresh water, nor hope. 

“ There’s men in every port ha’ seen her, her 
hull black like a coffin an’ her sails showin’ red 
in the glare o’ her burnin’ spars. In a light 
breeze her sails are full to burstin’, an’ she sails 
in the teeth o’ the wind. There’s some that say 
they’ve seen her with blue fires leapin’ out o’ the 
hold, while the shrieks o’ those on board rise 
higher’n the storm. Higher yet sounds the 


268 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

laughter o’ the Fiend who still stands at the 
wheel.’’ 

Despite his skepticism, Latimer felt a little 
cold shiver run over him, for the sailor’s manner 
was impressive and convincing. And, as Mark 
pointed out, this story did tally with the Bac- 
chante's log. 

“ In the North Sea,” the sailor went on, “ the 
fishermen tell the story o’ Reginald Falkenberg, 
who killed a rival an’ his bride an’ was driven 
by his conscience to the nearest seacoast. There 
he found a boat waitin’, with two oarsmen, one in 
black, an’ one in white. He never saw their 
faces. They rowed him to a ship with all sails 
set* but wi’ neither helm nor helmsman, an’ the 
black figure an’ the white went down to the cabin 
an’ began shakin’ dice for Falkenberg’s soul. 
Their game will go on till the Last Day. 

“ Fishermen in the North Sea say that a sight 
o’ the Falkenberg Phantom means either a streak 
o’ good luck an’ a big haul o’ fish, or bad luck 
an’ maybe a wreck, the luck dependin’ on whether 
black or white had won the last throw o’ the 
dice. 

“ When I was a-sailin’ out o’ Hamburg, there 
was a German shipmate told me he’d seen the 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 269 


Death Ship. She carries a crew o’ skeletons, 
where a sailorman has to serve a century as cabin- 
boy, a century as Ordinary Seaman, an’ a cen- 
tury as Able Seaman. 

“ An Italian sailor told me the same yarn, but 
he said they’d sailed under her stern an’ he could 
see her name. She was called the Libera Nos. 
Her skipper is called Cap’n Requiem, so they 
say, an’ she’ll sail accursed until some ship’s crew 
boards her where every sailor is a Christian. I 
reckon,” remarked Mark thoughtfully, “ she’ll 
sail the seas a good while ! 

“ Ah, an’ I could tell yo’ o’ plenty more, all 
phantom ships o’ punishment, like Evert’s ship 
off Cape Horn, the Dog-Fiend craft o’ Brittany, 
the clipper Tennessee that’s always tryin’ to get 
into San Francisco Bay, the ‘ doomed dago o’ the 
Linshotens,’ an’ the Hudson River packet under 
Heer o’ the Dunderburg that sails up river from 
Hoboken, while the New England coasts have 
a dozen or more.” 

“ But those you saw yourself, Mark,” 
prompted the boy, who was afraid lest the sailor 
might wander into tales of some of these lesser 
phantoms. 

“ Ay, those I saw myself. There was three. 


270 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ The first I ever see was near the Horn. I’d 
signed on a full-rigged ship, the Firefly o’ Bos- 
ton, bound from Key West to Valparaiso, an’ we 
was on our way back, bound for Baltimore. The 
Phantom Ship was sighted on my watch below, 
an’ all hands were called. I ran up at once. If 
an Ordinary Seaman didn’t move lively, in them 
days, he got booted up the fo’c’s’le ladder, an’ 
don’t yo’ forget it ! 

“ The minute I stuck my eyes out o’ the hatch, 
I see the watch all lined up along the rail to 
wind’ard. There, slidin’ through the water like 
a Yankee clipper, was an ol’ craft, the sort yo’ 
see in pictures, high poop an’ all, makin’ full 
fourteen knots, clear in the wind’s eye. I didn’t 
get much more’n a squint at her, afore she was 
gone. Bein’ a small shaver at the time, her build 
an’ the way she was headin’ didn’t hit me right 
away like it did the ol’ shellbacks. It wasn’t 
until the others started to talk, an’ I begun to 
do some thinkin’, that I saw how queer she was.” 

“ And did you have any specially bad luck that 
trip? ” queried Latimer. 

“ Ay, we did that. We hit a water-logged 
timber-loaded derelict, just floatin’ awash, off 
Cape St. Roque,” the sailor answered. “ We 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 271 


never even saw her till we struck. It was a 
nasty smash. We was just about able to make 
Pernambuco with the pumps goin’, an’ that was 
all. The lookout man, him that had seen the 
Phantom Ship first, when we was a-goin’ round 
the Horn, was again on the fo’c’s’le head when 
the Firefly hit the derelict. He must ha’ fallen 
overboard, for no one ever seen him again.” 

“ Had he hailed Vanderdecken, or heard a 
hail? ” 

“ Not as I knows on. But he’d pointed at the 
ship!” 

Latimer shrugged his shoulders. It was too 
dark for the sailor to see the gesture, and since 
the boy made no uttered disbelief of his story, 
Mark continued: 

“ The next queer sight I saw was when I was 
ashore at Dieppe. I’d been paid off at Havre, 
under English articles, after three years aboard 
an old Indiaman what had been turned into 
tramp work, never touchin’ an English-speakin’ 
port in all that time. I don’t like Havre, an’ a 
shipmate wants me to go down to Dieppe with 
him to visit his folks. 

“ Me, I takes a fancy to his sister and hangs 
around Dieppe quite a while. I’m willin’ to say 


272 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


the word, but Lucile— that’s her name — jest puts 
me off from day to day. It’s the end of October 
an’ cold an’ rainy there. Me, I’m anxious to 
ship aboard some craft goin’ to southern lati- 
tudes, but Lucile she holds me back. 

“ Comes the second day o’ November. The 
evenin’ afore, Lucile, she says to me, in her 
French lingo: 

“ ‘ Come to the door, Mark, before it is dawn, 
and I will give you an answer at sunrise.’ 

“ Yo’ can lay yo’ bottom dollar I was thar, 
Young Master, ay, an’ a good hour afore dawn. 
Lucile, she slips out soon an’ puts her hand on 
my arm. Where she’s a-goin’ I don’t know, but 
I comes willin’ly enough. 

“ We reaches the quay. Dark it is, still, and 
the big red light on the breakwater, turnin’ 
around slowly, seems to look first at us an’ then 
out to sea. Pretty soon it gets a little more 
light, whitish-like, an’ the mornin’ fog begins to 
lift. 

“ An’ then, Lucile grips my arm tighter an’ 
points out over the harbor. 

“ I stares with all my eyes! 

“ Out o’ the mist I see cornin’ the shadow of a 
fishin’ schooner, rigged in a fashion I never see 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 273 


afore. Her sticks were high an’ slender, an’ her 
sails were that thin I could see the spars through 
’em. The falls were rigged an’ the boats were 
swingin’ from the davits, but there warn’t no 
sound aboard, an’ thar warn’t no curl o’ water 
at her forefoot. 

“ She runs so close I can jest about see the 
faces o’ the men aboard, an’ then, sudden an’ 
solemn, the bell o’ the big church begins to ring, 
an’ the schooner sort o’ fades away, jest like the 
mist. 

“ Then Lucile, she kisses me, softly an’ tender- 
like, an’ says: 

“ ‘ My friend, we will not marry. That is La 
Belle Rosalie! No man who has seen her ever 
comes back to a Dieppe wife. Good-bye, my 
friend, and forget me. Do not become a sailor 
on a French ship, but sail from some other coun- 
try. So will you be safe from having seen La 
Belle Rosalie / 

“ An’ then she slips away with the sunrise, 
leavin’ me starin’ at the water.” 

“And did you ever sign on a French ship, 
Mark? ” 

“Me? Never!” The answer was emphatic. 
“ Nor sail from a French port. I ain’t what yo’d 


274 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


call superstitious, but I know enough to take a 
warnin’ when I get one. Me, I don’t stay in 
Dieppe another day but slips my cable an’ makes 
for England.” 

Latimer concealed a smile at Mark’s protest 
that he was not superstitious, but asked, only: 

“ What was the third one you saw? ” 

It was growing dark, and the sailor looked 
about him uneasily. 

“ There’s other return-ships like La Belle 
Rosalie ” he began, evidently evading the an- 
swer. But Latimer, quick to catch from the sail- 
or’s manner that the withheld story was different 
from the others, pressed him again: 

“ You said you’d seen a third Phantom Ship, 
Mark. What was she like? ” 

Mark squirmed, spat out a quid that was but 
little chewed, and cut another one from his plug. 

“ It’s not a good thing to talk of in the dark 
o’ the moon,” he protested, “ but if yo’ will have 
it ” 

He paused a minute or two, then began in a 
lowered voice: 

“ There’s punishment ships a-plenty like 
Vanderdecken an’ the rest. There’s scores — ay, 
hundreds — o’ ships like La Belle Rosalie that sail 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 275 


their phantoms back to a port where some one is 
waitin’. 

“ But Fiend-Ships, or, as some call ’em, Devil- 
Ships, they’re rare.” 

He paused, as though he expected Latimer 
to question him, but, the boy saying nothing, 
Mark plunged into his story: 

“ About nine or ten years ago, I was A. B. 
(Able Seaman) on an old hooker, the Preciosa 
o’ Hvidsteen, sailin’ under the Norwegian flag, 
an’ bound from Hong-Ivong to San Francisco. 
She’d been a good barque, once, but now she was 
keepin’ afloat on a coat o’ paint an’ these wind- 
mill pumps that Norwegian an’ Swedish ships 
carry. Bad food, but decent treatment wi’ 
plenty o’ grog. I shipped on board her to get 
back to the States. I’d had enough o’ kicking 
around the Lower Archipelago (South Seas) as 
quartermaster on tramp steamers, wi’ coolie 
crews. 

“ We’d cleared Hong-Kong in the monsoon 
an’ were bowlin’ smooth an’ easy through the 
Bashi Straits, south o’ Formosa, when the wind 
dropped all of a sudden. I was at the wheel, at 
the time, an’ when the canvas come slappin’ back 
against the masts, I got a Number One scare! 


276 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


I thought I’d been nappin’ at the wheel — some- 
thing what has never happened to me! — an’ let 
her come aback. But, no, compass card was 
headin’ straight for the lubber’s point on the 
course set. 

“ Figurin’ that the mate’d make the same mis- 
take I had, an’ think the ship was slewin’, I calls 
out: 

“ 4 Right on her course, sir! ’ 

44 4 Ay, ay! ’ replies the mate, but dreamy-like, 
as if he wasn’t noticin’. 

44 Then I sees he’s lookin’ off on the weather 
beam, like there’s something wrong. 

44 Presently he comes aft. 

44 4 Hoveller,’ says he to me, 4 what do yo’ see 
out there? ’ an’ he points to about two points 
abaft the beam. 

44 4 Nothin’ but an of junk, sir,’ says I. 

44 4 Ay,’ says he. 4 But what junk? ’ 

44 4 Pirates, sir? ’ I asks, for it’s easy to see he’s 
worried, an’ there’s a good many pirates still 
kickin’ about those seas, though they generally 
let European and American craft alone. 

44 4 1 wouldn’t give a fog-horn hoot for junk 
pirates,’ says he; 4 the old man (the captain) has 
a rack o’ rifles aboard.’ 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 277 

“ He didn’t say no more, for up comes the old 
man, hair ruffled an’ eyes red. He’d been up all 
night takin’ her through the straits an’ had been 
asleep. Naturally, when the Preciosa lost way, 
he woke up. 

“ 4 What is it, Mr. Christensen? ’ he asks. 

“ 4 The Serpent Junk, sir,’ answered the mate. 

44 4 The what! 5 

“ The mate hands him the glasses. 

44 The old man looks long an’ steadily. 

44 4 Call all hands, Mr. Christensen! ’ says he. 

44 They mustered, wonderin’ what had hap- 
pened. 

44 4 Men,’ says the skipper, 4 there’s an old 
junk on the beam, maybe a mile or a mile an’ a 
half away. We’re becalmed, an’ suddenly. Yon 
craft may be the Serpent Junk an’ if she drifts 
near us, she’ll bring plague an’ fever aboard. 
We’ll have to tow clear. I’m tellin’ yo’ all, so 
yo’ don’t lose yo’ wits for one thing, nor waste 
any time for another.’ 

44 Then he turns to the first mate: 

44 4 Boats clear an’ out, Mr. Christensen,’ says 
he sharply. 

44 An’ to the second mate, who’s come up from 
below: 


278 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ ‘ Furl all sail, savin’ the foretopmast stay- 
sail; an’ smother the mizzen.’ 

“ There’s some o’ the hands had heard o’ the 
Serpent Junk, an’ some that hadn’t, but they 
saw the old man was in earnest, an’ them sails 
were clewed up an’ the gaskets passed in quick 
time. When the starboard watch came down 
from aloft, the port watch had got the boats free 
an’ hangin’ at the davits. There wasn’t any 
time wasted gettin’ ’em into the water. That 
junk was a-driftin’ nearer all the time.” 

“ And you, Mark,” queried the boy, “ what 
did you do? ” 

“ Me, I stayed at the wheel. The boats got 
way on the ol’ hooker, maybe a knot or so only, 
but it was something. 

“ There was just three of us left on board, the 
old man, myself, an’ the Chinese cook. He was 
burnin’ paper-prayers or somethin’ an’ singin’ 
charms in a high voice. 

“ Presently the skipper comes up to me, — he 
was a chatty ol’ boy — an’ begins to talk: 

“ ■ Ever heard o’ the Serpent Junk, Hovel- 
ler? ’ he asks. 

“ ‘ No, sir,’ says I, not havin’ been around the 
China Seas much. 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 279 


“ 4 It’s a queer yarn,’ says the skipper. * They 
say that once she was layin’ in the harbor of Foo- 
chow, loadin’ rice, when a North Chinaman come 
aboard an’ offered the master o’ the junk big 
money to take a whopping big horned serpent in 
a strong cage to the Zoo at Canton. The price 
was good an’ the cage strong, so the master o’ the 
junk agreed. The cage was got aboard an’ 
lashed to the mainmast an’ the junk hoisted sail 
an’ stood across the bar. 

“ 4 But, that afternoon, so they say, the 
weather grew dirty. The sea-birds flew low. 
The muddy sea turned gray. The clouds were 
greasy-lookin’, like smoke from an oil-burnin’ 
steamer, an’ by night, it was sure that a gale was 
cornin’. 

“ 4 The junk snugged down an’ was ready 
when the storm hit them with a howl. But, so 
they tell, louder than the storm, came a hiss from 
the cage lashed to the mainmast. The old junk 
trembled as the wind hit her, but she trembled 
more as the great serpent began to wake an’ 
move in his cage. 

44 4 Then, in the glare of a flash o’ lightnin’, 
the men aboard the junk saw the body o’ the evil 
creature swell an’ grow until the cage burst like 


280 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


a crate, an’ the huge body o’ the serpent, four 
times as big as when they put him on board, 
slithered his way along the deck. His eyes 
glared green like a starboard side-light seen 
through a fog, an’ the breath o’ the monster 
reeked poison. 

“ ‘ As the lightnin’ flashed a second time, the 
master o’ the junk saw that every man aboard — 
even the steersman — had leaped into the rigging. 
Sailor-like, he sprang to the tiller himself. 
There was just one cry heard by the sailors above 
the shriekin’ o’ the gale, an’ no more. 

“ ‘ All night the junk drifted. Next mornin’, 
with sunrise, the sea calmed down, an’ the sailors, 
lookin’ down fearfully, saw the captain gone an’ 
the main-hatch open. The mate, an Amoy man, 
greatly darin’, clambered down an’ clapped the 
hatch-cover on the coamings. A spar was lashed 
over the hatch, an’ for the moment, the crew felt 
safe. 

“ 4 But their provisions were below. The wind 
died to a calm. The sea came like glass. The 
junk lay idle. Two days, without food or water, 
they waited for a wind. Then the Amoy mate 
an’ a sailor from Shanghai, drawin’ short swords, 
decided to risk one try for the food. 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 281 


“ * Cautiously the hatch-cover was lifted, but 
just as the mate was peerin’ over the coamings, 
the head o’ the creature shot up out o’ the hatch 
an’ from his nostrils came a blast o’ hot an’ fetid 
breath, which killed the mate an’ the Shanghai 
man like a lightnin’ stroke. The hatch-cover 
was slammed back an’ lashed tighter than 
ever. 

“ ‘ Nothin’ was left but escape. Without 
water, without food, the crew got out the little 
boat an’ rowed away for the distant shore, leavin’ 
the junk an’ the serpent, but takin’ with ’em the 
bodies o’ the mate an’ the Shanghai man. 

“ ‘ They made the shore. Penniless an’ fear- 
stricken, they separated an’ went to their homes. 
But they went to their homes to die! And, 
Hoveller, they say that in every village where a 
man went who’d been aboard o’ that junk, the 
plague broke out an’ took hundreds — ay, thou- 
sands — o’ lives. 

“ ‘ An’ she wanders these waters still, an’ will 
wander until some man has the courage to board 
her an’ take her back to a harbor. But what man 
dares, knowin’ it means his death an’ the bringin’ 
o’ the plague! ’ 

“ The old man turns to watch the junk, an’ I 


282 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

looks at her, too. There’s no doubt she’s gettin’ 
nearer. 

“ ‘ Looks like she’s catchin’ us, sir,’ says I, 
trying to speak quiet-like. 

“ ‘ The calm always lasts one watch, they say,’ 
he answers. ‘ When the first cat’s-paw comes, 
we’re safe. The wind’s never been made that’ll 
fill the sails o’ the Serpent Junk.’ 

“ But she creeps nearer an’ nearer, for ye 
know that two ships in a calm attract each other 
an’ it takes the crews o’ both, pullin’ in opposite 
directions, to keep ’em apart. 

“ Me, bein’ at the wheel, I was furthest aft, an’ 
I couldn’t help thinkin’ that I’d be the first to 
get the poison o’ the plague ship. 

“ She wasn’t two cables’ length away when 
there comes a ripple on the water. 

“ ‘ Give me a hand, Hoveller! ’ sings out the 
skipper. 

“ I drops the wheel, an’ gives him a hand-over- 
hand on the gaff -halliards, an’ dodges back to the 
wheel. She pays off nicely an’ begins to foot it 
through the water. 

“ The mates an’ boats’ crews drop back, the 
boats are run up to the davits again, we crowd 
on sail, an’ there’s not a man aboard that isn’t 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 283 


ready to do a hornpipe when he sees the Serpent 
Junk fadin’ away astern. 

“ Them’s the three phantom ships I’ve seen, 
Young Master, an’ yo’ll allow I’ve got some rea- 
son for believin’ in sech things ! ” 

Latimer found no answer. The boy was wise 
enough to see that traditions which are universal 
in all seas and which have existed for many cen- 
turies may possibly have some foundation in fact, 
and denying belief in Mark’s visions would 
neither make them true nor false. 

“ You’ve given me plenty to think about, 
Mark,” was his non-committal rejoinder. 

“ Ay, an’ I could tell yo’ plenty more,” said 
the sailor, and, with a concluding phrase or two, 
went below. Latimer watched the sea a while, 
then followed suit. 

Towards midnight, he was awakened, sud- 
denly. 

“ Mas’er Latimer,” said a voice which he rec- 
ognized as that of Caesar, the Master Diver, 
“ will yo’ step on deck a minute, sah! ” 

Latimer tumbled out at once, for there was a 
note of urgency in the negro’s voice. 

On reaching the Molly Day's deck, he judged, 
from a rustling murmur about him, that every 


284 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

man of the crew was there, but he could barely 
see them. It was a pitch-black night, the stars 
not invisible but thinly veiled with cloud. The 
riding light, swinging at the masthead, was the 
only bright spot. 

For a moment the boy was dazed, his eyes 
heavy with sleep. Then, as little by little his 
vision cleared and the pupils expanded, he be- 
came aware of something faintly, very faintly, 
luminous upon the water. 

Slowly this wisp of luminosity took shape. 
He could see where it began and ended, and with 
infinite gradations, as though he were watching 
a flower grow, there became impressed upon his 
retina the form of a ship. 

Towering tall of prow and of poop was she, 
and deep in the waist. Her masts, suggested 
rather than actually seen, were transparent 
against the sky. Her sails were full, as though 
a strong breeze were filling them, but the wraith 
— if wraith she were — did not move upon the 
water. 

“ Mas’er Latimer,” said Caesar in an awe- 
stricken whisper, “ it’s the galleon, sah! ” 

“ The St. J ago! " cried the boy. 

And, as though the naming of her had given 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 285 

form, the shadowy outlines of the old treasure- 
ship grew clearer. 

The luminosity took form and apparent sub- 
stance. Upon the hull were visible, now, the 
portholes and windows of the castellated poop. 
Even the scroll-work could be seen. 

“ Mas’er Latimer! Mas’er Latimer! She’s 
puttin’ out her boats! ” 

There was terror in Caesar’s voice, and, in an 
instant, the boy sensed the danger. 

The negroes feared that the boats from the 
phantom were going to board the Molly Day . 

A hoarse mutter arose around him. 

There flashed over the boy his father’s phrase: 

“ There’s only one thing that the best ship’s 
officer can’t fight— and that’s panic! ” 

If one man of the crew made a break for the 
anchor cable, or touched a rope, even if one voice 
were raised to suggest it, all was lost! A single 
second might precipitate the panic which Lati- 
mer felt was surging upwards in the fears of the 
crew. 

He must admit to the apparition, even if only 
to humor the superstitions of those he had around 
him. 

His young voice rang out, confidently: 


280 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ Watch the boats, boys! They’re going to 
land on the island! ” 

The murmur lulled. The men were watch- 
ing, their eyeballs staring, their muscles tense. 
For the moment, the suggestion had overborne 
their fears that ghosts of men long dead were 
about to board the schooner. 

The prophecy came true. The phantom gal- 
leon’s phantom boats shot out for the site of the 
island, now beneath the water, where the “ Ad- 
miral ” had plotted it on the chart. 

And there, faintly yellow in the dim starlight, 
gleamed a band of sand, not ten fathoms from 
the Molly Day's counter. 

The phantom boats were near, very near! 

Latimer, his senses rendered acute by the 
tenseness of the situation and the responsibility 
of knowing that everything depended on his cool- 
ness, heard a scuffling of feet. 

The men must not be allowed to move! Their 
attention must be held ! 

“ The crew will be bringing up the slaves from 
below! Watch, boys! ” he cried. 

The diversion acted upon primal curiosity. 
Again the men stood still. 

Upon the galleon’s deck, forms could be seen 


THE PHANTOM GALLEON 287 


moving, faint, hardly to be distinguished from 
the dimly luminous mass. Then, like the passing 
of vague shadows across the soft gleam, there 
shot the wraiths of Caribs diving from the 
doomed ship. 

Once more Latimer’s voice sounded assur- 
ingly: 

“ She’s been scuttled, now! In a minute or 
two, she’ll go down! ” 

Again, silence! The boy felt that as long as 
he could keep control, as long as white man’s 
reason could dominate black man’s feeling, as 
long as he could discount the terror of the un- 
expected by showing that he knew what was 
about to happen, so long could the superstitious 
fears of the negroes be held in check. 

He was guessing wildly, skeptical at heart, 
unwilling to credit the testimony of his senses, 
yet conscious that the tragedy of the St . Jago 
was being reenacted before his eyes. 

The minutes passed. 

Then, slowly, the phantom galleon heeled 
slightly, and began to sink by the bow, listing to 
starboard as she went. Lower and lower she 
sank, half righted, came to an even keel, and 
plunged stern first into the sea. 


288 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


The luminous gleam died out. The yellowish 
sheen of the sank-bank faded. The landing 
boats vanished, to be seen no more. 

“All over, boys!” cried Latimer, cheerily. 
“ Time to turn in! ” 

One by one, some still silent in their fear, 
others laughing over-loudly in reaction, the 
wreckers went below. 

But the boy, himself, remained on watch until 
sunrise, staring at the sea where the phantom gal- 
leon had sunk. 



The Phantom Ship. 


In this form is the strange craft most frequently reported. Scarcely a 
year goes by that some ship’s log does not record sighting 
the spectral vessel. 




The Spectre of the Capes. 

Early navigators believed that both Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope were guarded by a storm-spirit 

of destruction. 



CHAPTER XI 


THE COFFER-DAM 

Next day the Moray arrived, greatly to Lat- 
imer’s relief. He had held the crew of the Molly 
Day from panic, but had fears that, if the ap- 
parition should come a second time, he might 
not be so successful. In order to give an ac- 
counting of his stewardship, he went aboard the 
tug as soon as she arrived and told the story in 
exact detail, as far as he could remember it, re- 
ceiving praise from his grandfather for his pres- 
ence of mind, and praise from the “ Admiral ” 
was rare. 

“ What do you suppose the phantom really 
was, Grap? ” asked the boy. 

The old wrecker shrugged his shoulders, and 
drank a glass of grog. 

Captain Jerry Voley, however, felt it was in- 
cumbent on him to make some sort of an ex- 
planation, lest Latimer might become supersti- 
tious. 

“ I suppose it can be explained, in a way,” he 
interjected. “ You say that Mark had been tell- 
289 


290 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

in g you stories of Phantom Ships all evening, so 
his mind and yours were full of the idea. He 
may have been talking about it to the crew. Ne- 
groes aren’t exactly what you’d call brainy, but 
their minds are quick to catch impressions. If 
one or more of the crew caught the infection 
from your minds, it would spread. Call it mob 
telepathy, if you like, and say that each one 
visualized what was in the other’s mind. After 
all, there’s no way of comparing what each man 
saw. The only point that’s sure is that each of 
them saw something. It’s a lame explanation, 
perhaps, but it’s better than nothing.” 

The old wrecker snorted. 

“ I don’t know what’s come over folks to-day! 
Ye can’t be content with nothin’! Ye’ve got to 
try an’ explain, have ye? Ye’ve got to try an’ 
show that what a whole ship’s crew has seen, 
ain’t so! Yah! The trouble wi’ ye, Son Jerry, 
is that ye ain’t got courage enough to say there’s 
something ye don’t know. Ye’ve got a brain 
like a chart! Everything that ain’t marked on 
it, ain’t there. But there’s many a rock in the 
sea, Son J erry, that ain’t charted yet, an’ there’s 
many a happenin’ in this world that the brain 
don’t know! So both get wrecked! ” 


THE COFFER-DAM 


291 


The captain did not retort. Argument was 
useless and would only irritate the “ Admiral,” 
who was in none too good a temper. Latimer, 
who had wanted to ask about the plans for the 
raising of the St. J ago, refrained until his grand- 
father turned in, which he did every night, with 
the regularity of a chronometer, when nine 
o’clock came round. Despite his ninety years, 
the old sea-dog could stay up all night, if need 
be, but except when on a wrecking job, or in bad 
weather, he never broke his rule of early retir- 
ing. 

“ What happened about Chapitt, Dad? ” 
queried the boy, as soon as the “ Admiral’s ” 
cabin door had closed. 

“ We’ve arranged it, in a way,” was the reply. 
“ I cabled to New York and they cabled back 
that Old Man Chapitt was at Miami. So, in- 
stead of waiting for letters or cables from there, 
we ran the Moray over.” 

“ And Grandfather and Mr. Chapitt got to- 
gether! ” The boy grinned. “ That must have 
been worth hearing.” 

“ It wasn’t.” Captain Jerry made a grimace. 
“ Father was in one of his ugliest moods and 
roared about that swell hotel as though he were 


292 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

scrapping with a Key West wrecking gang in a 
full gale. I think he’d have been thrown out of 
the place if he’d been talking to any one else. 
But Chapitt is one of the owners of that string 
of hotels they’ve built on the edges of the Florida 
swamps.” 

“ How did Chapitt take it? ” 

“ Well,” was the reply, “ I’m bound to admit 
that Old Man Chapitt was doing some bellow- 
ing himself. He’s a wrecker, too, after all, and 
the polish isn’t any too deep. The folks in the 
hotel must have thought a hurricane was brew- 
ing. I kept quiet, mostly, just answering ques- 
tions about salvage, when one or the other shot 
one at me. 

“ The noise was mostly noise, though. Chap- 
itt knew that Father would never have come to 
him unless he had to, and that gave him the up- 
per hand. He turned down flatly the 4 Ad- 
miral’s ’ idea that the Chapitt outfit should come 
and work under his direction for a fixed sum, or 
for a share in the prize.” 

44 Why?” 

44 Because Chapitt wanted to boss the job him- 
self. He’s retired, but he likes to take a fling 
at a big thing, once in a while, and, seeing he was 


THE COFFER-DAM 


293 


already at Miami, with his yacht Humming-bird , 
a treasure-hunt would be an amusement to him. 
He wanted to take over the whole job and pay 
us a share for locating the St. Jago. Then Fa- 
ther just shook the building with his thunderings. 
I never saw him so mad. 

“ To wind up, they made an agreement that 
we should provide the Moray , four wrecking 
schooners and crews, and six divers, with our 
full equipment. The Chapitts are to send the 
Mastodon — their big pumping craft — twelve 
pontoons and six divers, and, besides, a staff of 
wrecking engineers. We’re to take charge of the 
diving operations, the Chapitts of the raising 
operations. 

“ One-fifth of the total treasure found is to 
come to us — they fought over that proportion 
for about two hours — for the locating of the 
treasure-ship. The expenses of both parties are 
to be taken out of the remaining four-fifths of 
the treasure. What treasure is left — if any — is 
to be split three ways, one to them, one to us and 
one as a sinking fund out of which to pay claims 
or court costs if any legal questions come up. 
Mark Hoveller’s share will come out of that.” 

“ Not so bad, Dad,” commented Latimer. 


294 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“ We get more than they do. But what’s the 
idea of ‘raising operations’? Surely Chapitt 
doesn’t think of raising the St. Jagol And, if 
he did, wouldn’t the galleon belong to Spain? ” 

“ It’s just the idea of raising her that got the 
arrangements settled at last. Chapitt showed 
Father that, if the galleon could be got up, she 
was such a historic vessel that she’d be worth a 
lot of money, much more than merely if the treas- . 
ure were salvaged. Chapitt just about said that 
he’d buy out our share, so as to dicker with the 
Spanish government himself for the ship.” 

“ But the treasure! ” protested the boy. “ If 
we get up the St. Jago, that’ll prove that the 
treasure belongs to Spain, while if we only get 
up from her the gold at the bottom of the sea, 
on a sand-bank lying outside the three-mile limit 
of any nation’s possession — the way you ex- 
plained it to me the other day — all the treasure 
would be ours.” 

Captain Jerry looked slyly at his son. 

“ I reckon between two old wreckers like the 
‘ Admiral ’ and Chapitt,” he said, “ there won’t 
be any more money paid back to Spain than 
there need be.” 

“ I don’t see how,” said Latimer stoutly. 


THE COFFER-DAM 


295 


“ You won’t be expected to know how,” was 
the sharp retort. “ You can leave that to your 
elders.” 

The boy sat silent under the rebuke. He 
knew, that in many wrecking operations, queer 
things happen, largely because some of the 
medieval and unjust laws dealing with salvage 
in various European countries have never been 
repealed. Hence, when treasure-ships are con- 
cerned, salvage operators often prefer to main- 
tain secrecy rather than to evoke costly lawsuits 
under those semi-obsolete statutes. 

In the course of the afternoon, the Rose came 
and took up her station, and great was the yarn- 
spinning aboard that schooner when the men 
from the Molly Day rowed over and told the tale 
of the phantom galleon ! But the “ Admiral ” 
was back with them again, and the negroes had 
implicit faith in him. 

Early the following morning, a trim white 
yacht, powerful, despite her long flowing lines, 
joined the group. Latimer had never seen the 
Humming-bird before, though he had often 
heard of Old Man Chapitt’s yacht. She swung 
to her anchor, not far from the Moray , and made 
the powerful wrecking tug look like a clumsy 


296 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


barge by comparison. Yet, of the two, the 
Moray was the sounder craft. 

A boat came dancing over the waters, and 
Chapitt, whose wealth had not made him in the 
least arrogant, was aboard. He frankly invited 
himself to dinner aboard the Moray , showed him- 
self in high good-humor, and completely broke 
down the “ Admiral’s ” latent hostility by tales 
of the wrecking days of old. He was nearly 
thirty years younger than the head of the Voley 
clan and deferred to his senior’s experience in a 
way that was very gratifying to the Bahaman. 

When it grew late in the afternoon, Chapitt 
rose to go, inviting Latimer to come and take 
dinner on board the Humming-bird . Captain 
Voley accepted on behalf of the lad, for he had 
great hopes of being able to arrange a partner- 
ship on some basis, and, in that case, Latimer 
would become a member of the firm when he 
was grown up. 

The Humming-bird was, to the boy’s eyes, a 
marvel. While her fittings were luxurious, they 
were solid and seaworthy. Gear was neatly 
coiled and the decks as white as snow, but there 
was no effort — as on some pleasure yachts — to 
remove the appearance of nautical utility. Un- 


297 


THE COFFER-DAM 

doubtedly the Humming-bird could make good 
weather, under either sail or steam. 

Chapitt and the boy dined alone. The head of 
the great wrecking company made no effort to 
question Latimer about the St. Jago, nor any 
of the affairs of the Voleys. His hospitality was 
not marred by curiosity. Instead, he laid himself 
out to entertain the boy with stories of the great 
salvage operations he had conducted in all parts 
of the world. 

One casual reference he made to “ raising the 
Utopia with a coffer-dam” especially caught 
Latimer’s attention, because of what his father 
had said, and he asked for further information. 

“You want to hear about the Utopia , Mr. 
Voley ” — it was the first time Latimer had been 
called “ Mr.” and tickled him enormously — 
“ there wasn’t anything so very sensational in our 
work on that, but it was an important case, just 
the same. 

“ The Utopia was an emigrant steamer, bound 
from Genoa to New York, with over 1,000 steer- 
age passengers, and some hundred or two in the 
first and second cabins. I don’t exactly remem- 
ber how many, now, but she had nearly 1,300 
persons on board, all told. 


298 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Although it was in June — 1895, I think — 
the weather in the Mediterranean had been 
stormy. The Utopia , in order to avoid a bad 
gale raging in the straits, ran into Gibraltar Bay. 
The anchorage there, by the way, is rather tricky. 
The seamanship displayed wasn’t very good, and, 
either by reason of some mishandling of the deck- 
crew, or by poor management of the steamer her- 
self, she was a long time dropping her hook after 
she lost way. It was blowing great guns, too, and 
the anchor dragged. To give it holding, they 
let out more cable. But, what with one thing 
and another — poor seamanship, a heavy gale, 
and a dragging anchor, the Utopia drifted down 
with some force on the ram bow of H. M. S. 
Anson , a British battleship at anchor, and im- 
paled herself on the ram. 

“ You can imagine what a terrible gash was 
made in the plates of the Utopia ! She careened 
and sank almost immediately. Just four min- 
utes passed between the time she struck the ram 
of the Anson and the moment she disappeared 
beneath the waves. Yet, short as that time was, 
so perfect had been the discipline on board the 
Anson , that, in a trifle under two minutes, every 
one of the battleship’s boats was in the water, 


THE COFFER-DAM 


299 


and the man-o’ -war’s men rescued 1,100 out of 
the 1,300 in the ensuing two minutes before the 
Utopia went down. 

“ She lay in shallow water, almost in the fair- 
way, with her funnel and her masts showing 
above the surface. Under the present British 
shipping laws — which are generally adopted by 
all the maritime nations of the world — if a ves- 
sel lies in a channel where she is an obstruction 
to navigation, the authorities have the right to 
order the owners to commence salvage opera- 
tions immediately. If they fail to do so, port 
authorities or government authorities may sal- 
vage her themselves or order her immediate de- 
struction. 

“ As it happened, a British wrecking com- 
pany, with whom we are affiliated, had been en- 
gaged for some time in raising the tank-steamer 
Pluto which had sunk off the Canaries, and we 
had sent equipment also. That was a big job, 
too, but there was nothing spectacular about it. 
The owners of the Utopia cabled to that British 
company to take charge, so both its wrecking 
outfit and ours hurried from the Canaries to 
Gibraltar. 

“ The Utopia , as I said, lay in shallow water. 


300 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


Her stem was a trifle over seven fathom — fifty- 
seven feet, to be exact — below the surface, and 
she had a heavy list to port. That list meant a 
lot of extra trouble, for the steamer was too big 
to be lifted by pontoons. The best way to raise 
her was to build a coffer-dam about her. Do you 
know what a coffer-dam is, Mr. Voley? ” 

“ Only in a general sort of way, Mr. Chapitt. 
It’s a construction of some kind, made to keep 
the water out.” 

“ Yes,” was the doubtful answer, “ but that is 
not a very clear description. There are a good 
many different kinds of coffer-dams. The pur- 
pose of them, in salvage, generally, is to create 
a means whereby the water which is above a 
wreck and which is pressing it down, can be re- 
moved. Let me illustrate by showing you what 
we did with the Utopia. 

“ She hadn’t been sunk very long, and the bot- 
tom, at Gibraltar Bay, is tolerably hard, scoured 
out by the current. We were able to work di- 
rectly on the ship. We built a strong frame of 
close-grained chestnut wood — there’s plenty to 
be got in Spain — riveting that frame to the sides 
of the ship. You’ll get the idea, easily, if you 
think of that frame as extending upwards the 



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THE COFFER-DAM 301 

rail of the steamer all round, to the surface of the 
ocean. 

“ The frame was made double, the outer and 
the inner skins being about eight inches apart, 
and the space between was filled with puddled 
clay. This packed down, of course, making the 
frame or coffer-dam water-tight. Then heavy 
braces — logs a couple of feet thick — were spiked 
from side to side above the deck of the ship, and 
all the way to the surface of the sea. You can 
see the coffer-dam had to be built enormously 
strong, to resist the tides and currents below the 
surface, and the waves at the top. It would have 
to resist a still stronger pressure when the pumps 
should start. 

“ When this at last was finished, the divers 
patched with timbers and wreck-mats the hole in 
the side of the Utopia which had been made by 
the battleship’s ram. Of course, this patch 
couldn’t be absolutely water-tight, but where 
small leaks were too numerous they were plugged 
with a special cement we use made of freshly- 
killed bullocks’ blood and slaked lime, which is 
entirely waterproof. 

“ At last all was ready for the pumps. We 
put two of the wrecking pump-steamers beside 


302 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

her, one on either side, and started them. Those 
pumps, you know, can throw almost a ton of 
water a minute, and it wasn’t long before the 
coffer-dam was empty of water and the deck of 
the Utopia was exposed. Then the pump pipes 
were dropped into the hold of the Utopia , taking 
the water out of her hold. As she emptied, with 
her own buoyancy and that of the wooden coffer- 
dam, the steamer lifted slowly. 

“We didn’t let her get too high, because the 
coffer-dam might make her top-heavy, but, as 
soon as she was off the bottom, we hitched a tow- 
line to her and pulled her into shallower water, 
until she grounded again. Then the pumps were 
again set at work, taking some more water out. 
She lifted again, and we towed her closer in. 
Then we started dismantling the top part of the 
coffer-dam, which was sticking high out of the 
water, pumped the Utopia out some more, towed 
her further in, and so on, until we beached her, 
so that her shattered side was high and dry at low 
tide. The rip in her side was patched with steel 
plates, the pumps were put in her again and she 
was pumped dry. Then, at high tide, rollers be- 
ing put under her, she was refloated and towed 
to Glasgow for permanent repairs. 


THE COFFER-DAM 303 

“ It took us a trifle over three weeks to build 
the coffer-dam, with eighty divers at work, two 
hours on and six off, day and night, but it re- 
quired just one hour to lift her from the bottom 
from the moment that the pumps began. The 
job cost us about $50,000 and the ship was worth 
nearly half a million when we got her to the sur- 
face. Counting the time for patching and tow- 
age to Glasgow, we were not more than six 
weeks on the job, in all, and the courts awarded 
us $200,000 for our work. Pretty good haul, 
eh?” 

“ Yes, sir,” declared Latimer enthusiastically. 
“ And cheap, too, for if you hadn’t done it, the 
owners would have lost every cent of their half- 
million.” 

“ Yet,” warned the salvage chief, “ don’t think 
that they’re all so easy. Once we set out to raise 
the ship Scottish King , which had gone over a 
rock-reef off the shore of Newfoundland, and 
tried the device of forcing the water out of her 
by compressed air. We got her off the reef, but 
the job cost us $60,000 and the award was that 
she was only worth $50,000 when afloat, of which 
we only got a third. You see, even in our big 
modern business, there’s plenty of risks.” 


304 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

“And it's such a splendid work!” declared 
Latimer, his eyes kindling. 

“ It’s interesting all the time,” the salvage 
chief agreed. “ It’s mighty seldom that any two 
wrecks are alike. Most of the time, each one 
brings a new problem which has to be handled in 
a different way. 

“ One of our assistant salvage engineers — the 
youngest chap on our staff, by the way — found 
himself in an awkward fix when he went up to 
see about salvaging the steamer Florian , which 
had struck on a ledge near Cape Race, New- 
foundland. She lay badly. The water outside 
where she lay was studded with rocks, so close 
together and so near the surface that it wasn’t 
safe to bring the tugs to her. And, if we put out 
an extra long tow-line we would have no control 
over the wreck and she would tear herself to 
pieces coming off. It was late in the autumn, 
our big salvage outfits were off on another job, 
there was no time to send to Europe for equip- 
ment and something had to be done at once. 

“ This young chap got to St. John’s, New- 
foundland, and set two shipyards at work on a 
hurry job, making two shallow coffer-dams — 
more like pontoons — sixty feet long, by twelve 


THE COFFER-DAM 


305 


wide and twelve deep. These were of single 
frame device, so as to be light, and carefully 
caulked, valves being inserted near the bottoms 
at each end. Owing to their shape and build, the 
coffer-dams drew very little water. 

“ Meantime, workers on the wreck had cut a 
series of holes in the hull of the Florian, below 
the level of her ’tween-decks, and huge pitch-pine 
logs were passed through these apertures, so that 
they projected twenty feet on either side. If I 
remember rightly, there were sixteen of these logs. 

“ The two coffer-dams were then towed from 
St. John’s, to points abeam of the wreck, the 
valves opened and the coffer-dams partly sunk. 
They were then dragged towards the Florian and 
sunk further, until the coffer-dam on each side 
was below the protruding logs which passed 
through the wrecked vessel. The valves in the 
coffer-dams were then closed, pumps started 
simultaneously on both, and, as the water was 
pumped out of the two coffer-dams, and they 
rose, they lifted the ship off of the rocks. A long 
tow-line was run out, safely now that the wreck 
was afloat, and the Florian slipped into deep 
water. She was towed into the harbor of St. 
John’s, with the two coffer-dams still holding her 


306 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

up. The young engineer got promotion on that 

job. 

“ Of course, as you know, in many simpler 
cases, ordinary barges or schooners act as these 
coffer-dams did and the lifting force is the tide.” 

“ Yes, Mr. Chapitt,” the boy agreed, “ we did 
that ourselves with the Petrel , a small Mexican 
coasting steamer. We passed cables under her 
and fastened them to schooners, four on each 
side. When the tide dropped, we tautened the 
cables. As the tide rose, lifting the schooners, it 
lifted the Petrel with them. The Moray towed 
her into where the water was a little shoaler. 
There she grounded. At low tide we took up a 
little more slack on the cables, and up she came 
a couple of feet at the next high tide. We did 
that, five or six times, until she was well out of 
the water. Then the Moray towed her, eight 
schooners and all, to the dry dock at Key 
West.” 

The salvage chief nodded. 

“ That,” he said, “ is simply the pontoon sys- 
tem, only using the schooners as pontoons. 
Some of these days, if you have time, I’ll tell you 
about some of the wonderful work that has been 
done with modern pontoons. But I suppose 


THE COFFER-DAM 


307 


you’ll be wanting to go back to the Moray } or 
they’ll be thinking that I’ve kidnapped you ! ” 

Latimer went back to the wrecking tug, but 
not to sleep at once. He was too much excited 
by the tales that Mr. Chapitt had told him, espe- 
cially that of the raising of the Utopia . When 
at last he did fall asleep, his dreams were full of 
the salvage of huge ocean liners from the deepest 
abysses of the ocean, while phantom ships and 
giant squids rioted through his brain. 

There was a couple of days’ delay before the 
Chapitt equipment appeared on the scene, the 
great pumping steamer Mastodon towing the 
barges, but not an hour’s delay after it arrived. 
Chapitt, before he left Miami, had telegraphed 
full instructions, and the barges brought every 
possible item of material that could be needed. 

It did not prove an easy job. Unlike the 
Utopia , the St. Jago lay buried in sand. Noth- 
ing towards the actual raising could be done until 
the deck of the galleon was exposed, so that the 
work of building the coffer-dam could be begun. 
Then Latimer realized what his father had meant 
by “ sand-pumps.” 

The Chapitts had sent their largest wrecking 
steamer, with electrically driven submergible 


308 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


force-pumps, which, under full pressure, could 
discharge eight hundred tons of water per hour 
from a depth of fifty feet. These pumps, more- 
over, were adjustable by special attachments to 
the pumping of water mixed with sand, and 
could move one hundred tons of mixed sand and 
water per hour, a suction system being employed 
to equalize the proportion of the mixture. A 
dumping device, rigged up on two of the barges, 
received this volume of commingled water and 
sand, allowed the water to flow back into the sea, 
held the sand, and automatically tripped the solid 
matter back into the barge as soon as the hopper 
was filled. It took but half an hour to fill a 
barge, and one of these was brought up, empty, 
while the other was unloaded. The unloading 
was done by self-filling buckets, worked by 
steam, there being a small stationary derrick on 
each barge. 

It seemed almost like magic to Latimer, but 
the sand in which the St. Jago was buried began 
to diminish as though it were melting. More 
sand slid down from all sides as the depression 
deepened, but the pumps did not cease night or 
day, and, in fifty hours, the St. Jago lay exposed 
in a deep valley of sand, the sides of which had 


THE COFFER-DAM 309 

reached the gradient beyond which they would 
not slide. 

The instant that the deck had been exposed, 
the engineers of the Chapitt company had gone 
down with their expert divers and surveyed the 
situation. With the St. Jago cleared of sand, 
the greater part of the difficulties seemed to be 
surmounted. Word was given for the beginning 
of the building of the coffer-dam. 

And then, quite suddenly, the “Admiral ” re- 
vealed an unlooked-for danger. 

“ Can ye get her up in a week, Chapitt? ” he 
demanded. 

“ No, surely not.” 

“ Then all yer work’ll be no good.” 

“ Why not? ” 

“ Big blow cornin’, likely a hurricane.” 

“ Why, I was looking at the glass this morn- 
ing! I didn’t see anything wrong.” 

“ Nor I,” said the old wrecker, “ but I feel it.” 

The salvage chief dropped the subject, but, an 
hour or so later, he hunted up Captain V oley. 

“ Your father says there’s bad weather com- 
ing,” he announced abruptly. 

The master of the Moray looked up in sur- 
prise. 


310 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ Hurricane? ” he asked. 

“ That’s what he said! ” 

“ Reckon I’ll get ready to run back to Nas- 
sau.” 

“ But there’s no sign, either in sea or the sky, 
and the glass foretells fair weather.” 

“A barometer is a mighty sensitive instrument, 
Mr. Chapitt,” was the reply, “ but Father’s 
senses are a whole lot more sensitive. I thought 
I knew more than he did, one time, and, because 
the glass was quiet and there was every appear- 
ance of fair weather, I stayed out on a wrecking 
job, after he said we ought to run for shelter. I 
all but lost the Moray with every one on board in 
consequence. I would have lost her if Father 
hadn’t taken the wheel and got her into a cove I 
didn’t know anything about, and which wasn’t 
marked on the charts. Anything Father said 
about reefs or about weather on these banks, Mr. 
Chapitt, you can take for gospel.” 

Chapitt was stubborn himself, but he was no 
fool. If he had been, he would not have built up 
his wrecking company to be the most important 
on the American coast. He sought out his chief 
salvage engineer and told him of the warning. 

“ Funny! ” commented the latter. “ The nig- 


THE COFFER-DAM 


311 


ger cap’n o’ the Molly Day told me, just a little 
while ago, that he smelt wind. Said he dreamt 
of a big dog howling, last night. One of the 
divers, too, reported that 4 the sea-bottom felt an- 
gry.’ You know, Mr. Chapitt, some of these 
fellows have an uncanny foreknowledge of 
weather.” 

“ Suppose we knew there was a hurricane com- 
ing, what do you think we ought to do? ” 

“ If there’s time,” said the engineer, “ we 
ought to make exact measurements of the gal- 
leon, get into a protected harbor and make the 
two sides of the coffer-dam, to measurement, in 
shelter. Then, when calm weather comes, we 
can tow them here and bolt them directly to the 
galleon. It would be a better system, anyway, 
for the less hammering there is on that four-hun- 
dred-year-old hull, the better.” 

44 That’s going to cost us more, isn’t it? ” 

44 Yes, Mr. Chapitt, quite a bit more. But, 
from what they tell me about these West Indian 
hurricanes, one would smash a coffer-dam all to 
bits, no matter how strongly we built it. And, if 
it were already bolted to the galleon, it would 
pull the old craft to pieces, sure. 

44 You know, sir, she’s about ready to crumble 


312 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


if you touch her. The wood’s all spongy. I’ve 
already given orders to have tarpauling nailed on 
her from stem to stern. What’s more, as soon 
as I can get her on an even keel, I’m going to 
send divers down into the hold to see what we can 
do about interior bracing. I’m afraid of having 
her collapse in on herself.” 

“ Is she so frail, then? ” 

“ She’s rotten through and through. The less 
she’s man-hauled and moved the better. If you 
do as you said you wanted, and keep her for ex- 
hibition purposes, you’ll have to put an entire 
new skin inside her, build a new ship, in fact, in- 
side of the old one. She’s worm-eaten like a 
sieve. She’ll have to be supported with slings, 
on pontoons, all the way along, and any towing 
that’s done will have to be by lines on the pon- 
toons. There isn’t a bit of timber aboard her 
that you couldn’t push your finger through. 
This isn’t a salvage job, Mr. Chapitt, it’s digging 
up a ship’s mummy.” 

The salvage chief went back to the “Admiral.” 
His engineer’s report was disturbing. 

“ You’re sure about that storm coming? ” he 
asked. 

“No one but a fool would say he was sure of 


THE COFFER-DAM 


313 


anything at sea,” the old wrecker retorted. “ But 
I’m sure enough to order my gang back to Nas- 
sau. How about yer men? ” 

“ You know these waters, Admiral Voley,” re- 
turned Chapitt, pleasantly. “ I’ll be guided by 
you.” 

Then he talked over the engineer’s proposal of 
building the coffer-dam, in pieces, in a sheltered 
harbor. 

The wrecker’s countenance cleared. He felt 
that he had scored over his new partner. 

“ There’s a land-locked sandy cove on the lee 
side o’ Little Caicos,” he said, “ where ye could 
do any work o’ that sort, no matter how hard she 
blows. But the channel’s narrow, tricky an’ dan- 
gerous. If ye want to supervise the work yerself 
and run the Humming-bird in there, I’ll take the 
wheel myself, if ye’ve no objection. 

“ Son Jerry can take the Moray in, towin’ the 
barges wi’ the timber. He’s been there before. 
But the Mastodon , your dumping scows an’ the 
pontoons had better go to Salt Cay, in the Turks 
Islands. There’s a first-class harbor there. I 
can give ye a pilot for the Mastodon, if ye want 
one.” 

“ I’ll leave the entire arrangements in your 


314 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


hands,” Chapitt agreed. “But tell me, how 
much time do you think we have before the gale 
comes? ” 

“ We’d ought to be away from here, sure, afore 
this time to-morrow,” answered the old wrecker. 

“ That’s plenty,” said the New Yorker, and 
went back to his chief engineer to direct him to 
take the exact measurements of the St. Jago, as 
agreed. 

By that night the barometer began to show 
slight signs of “ pumping,” moving up and down 
in short jerks, but, on the whole, rising rather 
than falling. The Molly Day , the Rose and the 
other schooners set sail that night, for there was 
a danger of being caught in the calm which often 
comes the day before a hurricane. The Masto- 
don , with Caesar on board as pilot, and with the 
pontoons and dumping-scows in tow, started for 
Salt Cay. 

Darkness fell, but the engineers and two ex- 
pert divers who had remained, had not yet fin- 
ished their work of measurement. 

At the earliest break of dawn they returned to 
their under-water work, under urgent orders to 
hurry, and, a couple of hours later, everything 
was ready. 


THE COFFER-DAM 


315 


There was, as yet, no sure sign of the ap- 
proaching hurricane but a long oily swell. The 
birds were flying low, crying harshly. The 
barometer had begun to creep downwards, very 
gradually. The “ Admiral ” was obviously get- 
ting uneasy. He had been aboard the Hum- 
ming-bird since breakfast-time. 

The Moray , with the barges in tow, led the 
way. For the swift clipper-built yacht, the tug’s 
pace was lumbering and slow, and the sailing- 
master of the Humming-bird , proud of his ability 
to pass any vessel he met on the seas, fumed at 
the idea of tailing along after a wrecking tug. 
But Chapitt had conceived an enormous regard 
for the intuition and knowledge of the old 
wrecker, and the sound seamanship of the son. 

The signs of storm now declared themselves 
openly. Even the hollow resonance of the air — 
sure sign of a hurricane — pressed heavily upon 
all on board. A few hours’ delay would have 
been fatal. Chapitt admitted to himself that, 
had he remained until the barometer gave warn- 
ing, his fleet might have been caught, certainly 
with loss of property and possibly with loss of 
life. 

As the Moray negotiated the entrance to the 


316 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


bay — which was absolutely hidden from the sea 
— Captain Voley ran up a string of signals, tell- 
ing of the depth found by the leadsman at the 
shallowest point of the channel. The “Admiral ” 
whistled sharply as he saw the flags. 

“ How much water do ye draw, right now? ” 
queried the old wrecker. 

The sailing-master of the Humming-bird an- 
swered promptly: 

“ We’ve just loaded up with coal and we’re 
fairly deep. Say eleven and a half, maybe 
twelve feet.” 

“ Son J erry signals two and a half fathoms 
(fifteen feet) scant. That’s cuttin’ it pretty 
narrow. Ye’re sure, positive, that ye don’t draw 
more’n twelve feet? ” 

“ Sure,” was the reply. “Under, if anything.” 

“ Single screw, ain’t she? ” 

“ Yes, Admiral.” 

“ I don’t like it,” admitted the old wrecker. 
“ Takin’ a craft like this here over a ridge o’ 
rocks sharper’n sharks’ teeth with only three feet 
of water under her bottom is plumb perilous.” 

Chapitt answered with nonchalance. 

“ With you at the wheel, I wouldn’t care if 
there was only three inches under her.” 


THE COFFER-DAM 


317 


The “Admiral ” just glanced at him. 

“ Let me have three-quarter speed on her. I 
don’t want to dawdle; she’ll have to spin quick. 
She answers to her helm pretty lively, does she? ” 

“ Very fast.” 

“ She’ll need to!” 

The yacht put on speed. 

The heart of every man on deck was in his 
mouth as the trim white vessel sped on, for it 
looked as though the Humming-bird were going 
to sure destruction. The old wrecker gripped 
the wheel, his trembling hands steady, his age- 
bleared eyes keen again. Straight for a black 
rock, around which the surf was creaming, she 
headed, and, for a moment, the sailing-master 
wondered if the offer of help was but a ruse and 
the old wrecker was going to crash the yacht of 
his rival to disaster. 

But, just as the thought formed itself in his 
mind, the wheel spun over, the Humming-bird 
pirouetted so close to the rock that the spray 
flicked the men aboard as she slipped by and shot 
into a land-locked bay. Five minutes after, the 
yacht was anchored in waters as smooth and calm 
as those of a lake on a still day. 

That night the hurricane crashed upon them, 


318 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

but so sheltered was the cove that the Moray and 
the Humming-bird each rode to a single anchor. 
Except for a few hours, the following morning, 
when the blow was at its greatest height, work 
was not delayed, and the wreck-carpenters had 
no trouble in putting together the sides of the 
coffer-dam according to the measurements of the 
engineers. The sea was still rough, but, a week 
later, it had calmed down sufficiently for the two 
sections to be towed to the sand-bank beside 
which the St. Jago lay. The Mastodon had 
reached there the day before, and had pumped 
away, anew, the sand which had drifted about the 
sunken galleon during the storm. 

The weather was now calm and fine, and, with 
all hands at work, the coffer-dam was bolted rap- 
idly to the galleon’s side. Wreck-mat tarpaulin 
was nailed over the entire vessel, forming practi- 
cally a new outside skin. A few short timbers 
had been put in the interior of the galleon, brac- 
ing her from knee to knee, and at last the engi- 
neer reported that he thought it was safe to try 
to lift. 

At nine o’clock the next morning the pumps 
began work. The St. Jago , though considered 
a large ship in Columbus’ time, was small com- 


THE COFFER-DAM 


319 


pared to the vessels of to-day, and the space in- 
side the coffer-dam was not great. Less than 
twenty minutes sufficed to empty it. The pipes 
were dropped into the galleon’s hold. 

Then the real test began. With the pumps 
working at quarter speed, the water in the St. 
Jago began to leave her. She righted, and lifted 
slightly. 

This was the moment for which the divers had 
been waiting. With all haste, wide slings of re- 
inforced canvas were passed beneath the galleon 
and lashed to pontoons on either side. The pon- 
toons were then partly pumped empty of water, 
thus raising the St. Jago on the slings, so as to 
avoid any weight at all coming on the rotten tim- 
bers. At the same time, part of the water in the 
galleon’s hold was pumped out. Fearful lest 
any sudden strain might jolt to pieces this mere 
shell of a ship, the utmost care was used to equal- 
ize the pressure at every point. 

Slowly, an inch at a time, the St. Jago rose to 
the surface, not in her old-time glory, as Latimer 
had seen her in the apparition of a couple of 
weeks before, but covered in black tarpaulin, rot- 
ten, crumbling, encrusted with barnacles and sea- 
growths, and shining with slime. 


320 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


With the ancient treasure-ship borne up on 
these slings, the pontoons were lashed together 
and tow-lines of great length — to equalize the 
drag — attached to them. Then, at slow speed, 
over a calm sea, the Moray towed the St. Jago 
to a smoothly shelving beach on an uninhabited 
islet. There, at high tide, she was gently stranded. 
The retreating tide left her high and dry. 

Then came a tense moment of excitement — the 
boarding of the craft and the first hunt for the 
treasure. 

What would be found? 

The three Voleys, Chapitt, Mark Hoveller, the 
chief engineer, and Caesar were the first to board 
the galleon. They moved with exceeding caution, 
for, in many places, the planks of the deck were 
not strong enough to bear their weight. They 
reached the castellated poop, mounted on a lad- 
der-like series of steps with the utmost precau- 
tion, and reached the cabins. 

There was no need to break open locks. The 
metal fastenings broke away from the wood at a 
touch. 

Here and there, when made of harder woods, 
some parts were solid still. The stairway down 
to the captain’s cabin, made of solid mahogany. 


THE COFFER-DAM 


321 


was little rotted. The walnut panelling, though 
iridescent with decay, had not fallen in. Many 
of the decorations and scroll-work on the walls, 
covered with pure gold-leaf, gleamed almost as 
if they were new. Some of the larger beams 
showed glassy and agate-like, partly petrified by 
the flint in the sea-sand. Other parts of the 
woodwork were dank and foul. A stale stench 
mingled with the odor of seaweed. 

They came at last to an iron-wood chest in one 
of the cabins, possibly that of the treasurer. 
Chapitt stooped to open it, then drew back. 

“ No,” he said, “ the youngest first! Latimer, 
close your eyes, open the box, and bring out the 
first thing you find ! ” 

His heart beating rapidly with excitement, the 
boy shut his eyes, lifted the lid of the chest, and 
plunged his hand into something that felt like a 
mass of feathers — royal feather-cloaks, as he 
rightly guessed. Then he touched something 
hard ! 

He drew it out, and a shout of triumph came 
from his six companions. The boy opened his 
eyes and gazed at the prize. 

It was the nugget of Ana-Caona, the martyred 
Indian chief tainess ! 


CHAPTER XII 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 

The treasure of the St. Jago did not prove so 
large as had been expected. Moreover, after 
nearly two years’ litigation, the courts granted 
the claims of the Spanish Crown to a large part 
of the treasure. Yet the remainder was enough 
to make the Voleys rich and to enable Mark Hov- 
eller to go back to the United States and retire 
from the sea. 

So far as Latimer was concerned, his share of 
the treasure permitted him to fulfil his dearest 
ambition — that of entering and graduating from 
the Massachusetts “ Tech.” Then he spent a year 
abroad, visiting big salvage companies in Eng- 
land, France, Germany and Holland, and wit- 
nessing many salvage operations. When the 
World War broke out, Latimer, as a trained 
specialist in under-sea operations, volunteered at 
once, and was made assistant constructor in the 
building of submarine defenses at various Allied 
ports. 


322 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 323 

The war over at last, Latimer, a boy no longer, 
returned to his birthplace, the Bahama Islands. 

Alas! The sturdy figure of the old wrecker 
was no longer there to greet him. The “Ad- 
miral ” had reached that anchorage which no 
craft ever leaves. 

The old Moray was gone, too, worn out by 
years of faithful service. There was a new 
Moray , a much more powerful and modern ves- 
sel. None the less, Latimer grieved over the 
laying up of the old craft, on which, in his boy- 
hood, he had dreamed so many dreams, where he 
had helped in the rescue of the Ocean Fay , from 
which he had dived to the spell-ridden pirate hulk 
near Ghost Island, and on which he had shared 
in the never-to-be-forgotten raising of the St. 
Jago. 

But, though the old “Admiral ” and the old 
Moray were no more, the Voley name was not 
less honored than of old. Latimer’s father, Cap- 
tain Jerry Voley, partner in the great wrecking 
firm of Chapitt & Voley, was more active than 
ever. He had charge of all the wrecking opera- 
tions of the firm south of Cape Hatteras. More, 
owing to the fact that Old Man Chapitt was over 
seventy years of age, Captain Jerry, though the 


324 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

junior partner, was constantly summoned to 
New York, and was practically the general man- 
ager of the business. 

None of the treasure-money of the St. J ago de 
Almazora had been wasted — at least, none of it 
which had passed into the finders’ hands. These 
millions, wrung from the Arawak and Carib In- 
dians by the barbarous Bobadilla and the scarcely 
less ruthless Ovando, had gone to establish finely 
equipped wrecking stations at every important 
point along the North and South American 
shore. 

“ Salvage companies,” Jerry Voley had once 
declared, “ are not only to ship-owners what in- 
surance companies are to individuals and busi- 
nesses on land. They fulfil a higher function. 
They are the rescuers of all ships in distress, 
wherever they may be, without regard to size, 
value or registry. 

“ Now that there is wireless equipment on 
board almost every large vessel, and certainly on 
every one that carries passengers, and such ves- 
sels, if in any danger, can communicate instantly 
with powerful and swift ocean tugs in nearly 
every port, the perils of the sea are diminishing. 
To my knowledge, more than three thousand 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 325 


lives and a quarter of a billion dollars’ worth of 
property have been saved since the partnership 
of Chapitt & Voley was formed, ten years 
ago.” 

It was to work of this kind that Latimer re- 
turned after the war, work as greatly above the 
mere salvage of cargoes, as in the days of the 
earlier Moray , as that had been above the semi- 
piratic operations of the Black Fleet and the Key 
Westers of the middle of the century before. 

The first period of wrecking, which was more 
knavish than helpful, ended with the close of the 
Civil War. During the second period, from 
1866 to 1898, salvage operations were confined 
mainly to a saving of the cargo, or of freeing ves- 
sels which had run aground ; there was compara- 
tively little effort made to raise any save the 
lightest vessels from the sea-bottom. 

The third, or modern period, began with the 
efforts made by American divers to recover and 
raise some of the Spanish cruisers sunk in the 
engagement at Santiago, Cuba, during the Span- 
ish- American War, in July, 1898. The Maria 
Theresa was the first cruiser raised, but, heavy 
weather coming up soon after she was lifted, the 
wrecking company was unable to maintain the 


326 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


struggle, and the ill-fated cruiser sank a second 
time, on her way to an American port. 

The recovery of the Spanish cruiser Reina 
Mercedes marks the first of the successful war- 
ship salvage feats of the new era. Work was 
begun on her on January 2, 1899, and on March 
1st she was towed into Santiago Harbor. She 
had lain in over eight fathoms of water, twenty- 
six feet at the bow and forty-two feet at the stern. 
A coffer-dam was built. Pneumatic tools of 
American invention were used for drilling holes 
in the battleship’s plates, under water. The 
work was done with extreme thoroughness, and 
when the Reina Mercedes was raised, she could 
have kept down the water from her leaks with her 
own pumps. 

One of the ever-famous salvage cases of this 
period was that of the steamer Milwaukee, which, 
while on a voyage from Newcastle-on-Tyne to 
New Orleans, taking the northern route, went 
ashore near Aberdeen. The wreck lay in a most 
curious position, probably the only one of its kind 
in salvage history. A large rock had penetrated 
the bottom of her forehold to a height of eight 
feet above her tank top, making it absolutely 
impossible to get her off entire. 


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TORPEDOED BILLIONS 327 


As, however, the steamer was afloat from the 
main bulkhead aft, and her machinery was all in 
this section, it was decided to save this portion. 
In order to do this, the steamer had to be cut in 
two. Very small cartridges of dynamite were 
fixed to her hull and heft around her bottom, just 
forward of the bulkhead, and small explosions, 
one after the other along the line thus marked 
out, gradually cut her in two. The job was a 
most delicate one, as the charges of dynamite had 
to be powerful enough to rend the plates asunder 
without injuring the bulkhead. If the latter 
were jarred sufficiently to start even a small leak, 
the remainder of the vessel would have to be 
abandoned. The explosions, small but power- 
ful, continued incessantly for ten days, and five 
hundred pounds of dynamite were used. The 
front half of the Milwaukee was left sticking on 
the rock, the after half was towed to port, stern 
foremost, where a new bow was built and 
launched. Then the two pieces were welded to- 
gether and the Milwaukee , with a new bow and 
an old stern, continued her ocean career. 

A somewhat different case of a vessel impaled 
on a rock was that of the American liner Paris, 
which stranded on the Manacles, one of the most 


328 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


famous of all the danger points in the English 
Channel. There was a good deal of comment, at 
the time, as to how she got there. It had been 
supposed that her compasses must have been de- 
flected in some way, but wreckers found them in 
perfect condition. However she got on the 
rocks, there she was! A British wrecking com- 
pany worked for some time trying to get her 
off, and then abandoned the attempt after 
having lost a large sum of money in fruitless en- 
deavor. 

A German wrecking company, then, asked to 
be allowed to attempt salvage. Divers made a 
very thorough inspection of the wreck and found 
that a hole about twelve by sixteen feet in size 
had been punched in the vessel’s bottom about 
amidships. Pinnacles of granite protruded far 
into the ship. The efforts of the British com- 
pany had been in vain, for they had not taken 
time enough to discover the exact conditions. 

The vessel rested, practically, on a great pivot 
of granite, and the more powerful were the ef- 
forts made to tow her off, the larger would be the 
rip in her steel plates. She lay far too high for 
pontoons to be of any immediate use, and the 
weight of the enormous liner, in any case, would 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 329 

have required a very great number of specially 
built pontoons of large size. 

The first obstacle encountered by the German 
divers was a lush tangle of seaweed, growing 
in a thicket as dense as a tropical jungle and 
fully ten feet high. It had been this growth 
which had prevented the English divers from dis- 
covering the exact condition of the Paris . The 
first task was the cutting away of the greater 
part of this weed, an arduous piece of work, for 
the seaweed grew from a bottom of jagged rock 
and, of course, it is difficult to get the sweep of 
a cutting tool in the water. Special scythe- 
blades were fitted to iron handles and weighted. 
It was a curious sight to see divers, in their great 
goggle-eyed globular helmets, painfully swing- 
ing scythes as though they were hay-makers 
working in a meadow. 

This much accomplished, and the actual con- 
ditions revealed, the Germans did not try to 
move the Paris off the rocks. They undertook 
to move away the rocks from under the liner. 
The granite pinnacles, of excessively hard stone, 
wore out the points of the drills with exasperat- 
ing speed, but new points were provided and the 
work was not allowed to stop. Enormous 


330 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

charges of a specially powerful explosive were 
used which, indeed, blasted away the rock, little 
by little, but also racked the midship section of 
the Paris seriously. 

Weather in the English Channel is rarely fa- 
vorable for wrecking operations — even in sum- 
mer— for many days together. No less than 
three separate times, bad gales flooded the liner 
anew and drove her back on the rocks, but per- 
sistent work, night and day, enabled the wreck- 
ers to keep her from getting hung up badly. In 
about two months’ time the Paris was floated, 
the hole in her side patched and she was towed 
into Plymouth for permanent repairs. 

Time is always an important consideration, 
Many a vessel can be salvaged if the owners get 
in touch with a wrecking company with all speed, 
and if the wreckers hasten to the spot. 

The loss of the Assyrian , of the Elder-Demp- 
ster Line, was an example of the neglect of this. 
The liner grounded on the rocks at Cape Race, 
Newfoundland, and, as she was not badly pinned, 
the agents of the line at Quebec took up the mat- 
ter of salvage with several different firms of sal- 
vers corresponding first with one, then with an- 
other, in the endeavor to secure the lowest pos- 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 331 

sible price. At the end of a week, by competi- 
tive methods, they succeeded in getting the orig- 
inal price offered to them cut to one-half, and 
the owners chuckled at their business acumen. 
But, when the salvers got to Cape Race, the 
vessel was gone. Ship and cargo, valued to- 
gether at over $600,000, had gone down in the 
night, and being beyond the powers of salvage, 
were a total loss. 

Nor is it to be thought that wrecks always oc- 
cur on lonely reefs at sea or desolate promon- 
tories of the land. Many terrible wrecks have 
occurred — with great loss of life — even in har- 
bor. Still stranger, great ocean liners have sunk 
while moored to wharves in a seaport. A no- 
table case of this was the St. Paul , sl 13,000-ton 
liner which rolled over on one side and sank in 
the mud while moored to her pier in New York 
City. The cause of her sinking is still unex- 
plained. 

The case was an extraordinary one. The St. 
Paul rolled over quite suddenly. She sank four- 
teen feet deep in the mud, lying on her side, and 
over 2,000 tons of mud seeped into the vessel, 
adding immensely to the difficulties of raising 
her. Owing to her position, cramped in beside 


332 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


the pier, coffer-dam work could not be built on 
both sides, nor, because of the weight and char- 
acter of the mud, could it be pumped away. 
The great Merritt and Chapman Wrecking 
Company of New York had to invent an en- 
tirely new procedure in the case. 

A series of twenty-one timber and steel 
A-frames were erected on the starboard or ex- 
posed side of the vessel. Wire tackles were 
fastened to these and anchored to ten-ton blocks 
of concrete which were constructed on the next 
adjacent pier down-stream. A total pull of 840 
tons with 100-foot leverage was obtained with 
these tackles. A further direct lift of 1,200 tons 
was obtained by using four large pontoons at- 
tached to chains passed under the port side of the 
vessel and around the keel. 

Before these cables and chains could be 
passed under the hull it was necessary to dredge. 
This dredging had to be continued until the 
divers could get at the port-holes and close them. 
No easy task this! “ By any one familiar with 
the internal architecture of an ocean liner, with 
its closely-spaced decks, its numerous bulkheads 
and partitions, its winding passageways, and 
narrow and steep staircases in the machinery and 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 333 


cargo compartments,” says the Engineering 
News-Record, “ the difficulty of a man in a div- 
ing dress making his way through this labyrinth, 
lying on its side, in muddy water, and finding 
and closing a number of port-holes (many of 
them ten feet under the mud) can be appre- 
ciated.” 

It was necessary to cut holes in some of the 
bulkheads, and, at first, this was done by dyna- 
mite, but, while the work was in process, a suc- 
cessful under- water oxy-acetylene torch was 
perfected. This torch lights at will and cuts al- 
most a foot a minute through half-inch plate at 
a depth of fifty-four feet. One of the divers’ 
difficulties was the removal of a six-inch gun and 
ammunition, which was deep under the mud — 
this was in 1918, before the close of the World 
War, when liners were armed against subma- 
rine attack — and, as this gun had been built into 
the frame of the ship with the greatest strength, 
it was hard to remove. The smokestacks and 
masts were blasted away, to make it easier to roll 
the giant craft. In spite of every effort to re- 
move the mud, it was not found possible to take 
out more than 1,000 tons, leaving the same 
amount in the vessel 


334 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


At last the day came for rolling her over as 
much on an even keel as possible. Waiting until 
the tide was flowing down river, the direct lift of 
the wire tackles and that of the pontoons was 
thrown simultaneously on the craft — a pull of 
1,840 tons, in addition to the tide. Six days of 
such heaving, during the ebb-tide only, brought 
the vessel to within twenty-five degrees of being 
on an even keel. Then coffer-dams were built 
on both sides, four wrecking derrick barges were 
placed around the St, Paul and the work of 
pumping began. She was raised at last, but the 
enormous work had occupied nearly four months’ 
time. 

All these stories and hundreds of others were 
familiar to Latimer. Ever since the day when 
the St, Jago was brought to the surface, and her 
treasure had enabled the lad to become a salvage 
engineer, he had clipped and collected every 
article or item he could find which dealt with the 
salvaging of ships. He did so, still. 

“ Dad,” said Latimer, after he had been home 
a few days, “ what do you think of the idea of 
trying to get up some of the ships torpedoed 
during the war? ” 

“ I haven’t thought anything about it,” re- 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 335 

plied Captain Voley. “ I’ve had all I could do 
to attend to my own end of the business. It’s a 
long stretch of coast between Cape Hatteras and 
Cape Horn. And, some of these days, the 
United States is going to wake up to the fact 
that South America is progressive and prosper- 
ous. Then there’ll be more maritime business 
down there — and more wrecks. Altogether, I’ve 
had seven big jobs of salvage on the South 
American coast. Four were of German steam- 
ers, two of Italian and one of French. Port au- 
thorities down that way hardly know what the 
Stars and Stripes looks like. They never see it 
on ships of any size, anyway.” 

“ Yet there used to be an American merchant 
marine ! ” 

“ Ay,” agreed his father, “ there used to be, 
and one of the best in the world. The Yankee 
clippers were famous. It was the Yankees, as a 
matter of fact, who led the way in the new era 
of shipbuilding. The famous tea-clippers of 
England, like the Taeping and the Ariel , were 
built on American models. 

“ It’s a queer thing about Americans,” Cap- 
tain Yoley went on, thoughtfully. “ They don’t 
seem able to do much original invention. And 


336 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


they don’t seem able to perfect anything. But 
they can beat the world when it comes to making 
big practical adaptations on a rough scale.” 

<s How, Dad!” The boy’s tone was a little 
indignant, for, as a graduate of “ Tech,” 
he was an ardent upholder of the United 
States. 

“Well, take merchant ships, for example! 
The American clipper-built ship was simply the 
idea of transferring the lines of a British yacht 
to a large vessel. That wasn’t invention, that 
was adaptation. With that idea, they built up 
an A No. 1 merchant marine. Then the other 
nations took up the idea and perfected it, and 
American shipbuilders fell behind. 

“Take warships! Great Britain claims the 
credit for the first all-big-gun ship and actually 
has had the nerve to force upon the world the 
words 4 pre- Dreadnought ' and 4 Dreadnought ’ 
to mean ships built before and after that pat- 
tern. But, though the Dreadnought was the 
first ship of that type to take the water, Ameri- 
can naval designers had advocated the idea long 
before, and were actually at work on such a 
craft when the Dreadnought was first laid 
down. 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 337 


“ Take submarines ! The first idea was put 
out by a Frenchman, true enough, but the first 
submarine that actually worked was an adapta- 
tion of French ideas by an American. And 
where is the United States now in submarine 
construction? ’Way behind all the other naval 
nations. 

“ Take steamships! The first steamboat which 
actually went up a river was the Clermont , built 
by Fulton, an American, and it was launched on 
the Hudson River. But what was the Clermont? 
It was simply a rebuilding and combining of two 
experimental steamboats which Fulton had seen 
in Scotland and in France. The first actual 
working steamboat, like the first clipper, was 
American. Yet German and British shipbuild- 
ers have left Americans far in the rear. 

“Take aeroplanes! The Wright Brothers 
adapted a Danish glider and a French improve- 
ment of a German gas engine to build the first 
aeroplane that flew. But the United States 
Government wouldn’t help the Wright Brothers 
and they had to do all their development in 
France. What was the result? The United 
States failed utterly and horribly with her aero- 
plane building in the war, and, now that the war 


338 


THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


is over, several European countries have put 
aero work on a commercial basis, while America 
doesn’t even attempt it. To-day, the United 
States buys aeroplanes and dirigibles from for- 
eign countries, and even her postal aerial serv- 
ice is years behind that of Europe.” 

“ Why is that, do you suppose, Dad? ” 

“ Party politics, for one thing, and the domi- 
nation of the commercial attitude towards life 
for another,” was the terse reply. “ It’s not the 
fault of Americans as individuals. Rather it’s 
the systems which have grown up under what 
seem to me to be two false ideas. 

“ The first of these is an uncentralized govern- 
ment with an elective system which compels a 
politician — even the most honest and patriotic — 
to keep his ear to the ground all the time, lest 
party opponents in his own section of the country 
should undermine him. This forces a damaging 
sectionalism. 

“ The governmental system of the United 
States is incredibly wasteful — more wasteful 
than any royal court ever known in history — not 
because of the men in it, but because of the sys- 
tem itself. American citizens get less return 
from the heavy taxes they pay than do the citi- 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 339 

zens of any other country. With an enormous 
budget, the United States has no money to spend 
on experimentation, and has to depend for that 
on the personal gifts of millionaires. 

“ This terrific cost of administration may be a 
good thing in some ways. I don’t pretend to 
know much about internal affairs in the United 
States. But, so far as sea matters are concerned, 
it’s bad. What does a Senator or a Congress- 
man from a constituency a thousand miles inland 
know or care about the sea? Moreover, this de- 
pendence on the philanthropy of the rich begets 
a feeling of negligence on the part of Federal 
and State governments, and this, in turn, causes 
the people to wonder what governmental benefits 
they receive, anyway! 

“ The other thing is the domination of com- 
merce. The trouble is not so much that every 
American chases the Almighty Dollar, as that 
he regards this chase as the natural goal of man. 
The successful business men are regarded as the 
aristocracy of America. Look at American news- 
papers! They give in details the personal do- 
ings of rich business men. Why? Not to toady 
to them, at all, but because the American people 
like to read about them, in the same way that 


340 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


European newspapers tell of doings in court cir- 
cles, for the same reason. Commerce is not the 
king of America, but it is the king-maker. 

“ Because of that, by means of immoderate 
advertising, trade propaganda and various other 
fictitious ways, every effort is made to ‘ raise the 
standard of living.’ This, Lat, if you reduce it 
to its barest terms, is merely another way of 
saying that the people must be taught to buy 
more and spend more. 

“ In order to meet this high rate of spending, 
it is necessary to have a high rate of wages. That 
works all right, perhaps, in a great many inland 
matters — I’m not an expert in these and so can’t 
say — but it’s fatal, absolutely fatal, to any ef- 
fort to compete with other maritime nations on 
the sea. 

“ Look at it for yourself, Lat. If it costs 
more to build a ship in the United States and 
more to equip her, it stands to reason that a ves- 
sel has got to earn more, in order to yield fair 
dividends to her owners, than one which has cost 
less to build. Then, if it costs more to coal and 
provision her, if her taxes are higher, if she has to 
pay bigger wages to an American crew than is 
paid to sailors under any other flag, it is clear 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 341 

that her daily overhead expense is considerably 
bigger. 

“ In order to try to break even at all, she has 
to charge a higher freight rate than competing 
bottoms. Naturally, shippers choose the vessel 
with the lowest freight charges. American 
steamers can’t meet their expenses if they charge 
the same rates as ships of other countries, and so 
they have to go out of business.” 

“ But I thought, Dad, that the United States 
Government subsidized her merchant marine!” 

“ To a certain extent, she does, but not enough 
to make up the difference. And if she did sub- 
sidize it to this extent, it would be the govern- 
ment that was losing money. The deficit would 
have to be made up by taxation. That would 
mean, simply, that farmers in Iowa, cotton- 
growers in Louisiana or stock-raisers in Mon- 
tana would have to pay out of their pockets to 
enrich ship-owners in Massachusetts or Cali- 
fornia. As things stand now, the United States 
is on a lee shore when it comes to competition on 
the open sea. 

“ I happen to know this,” he continued, “ be- 
cause we’re face to face with the same condition 
in salvage. I can handle my affairs much more 


342 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


cheaply from Nassau than from Key West. 
Still, the Chapitt & Voley Company is largely 
American and we try to be as American as we 
can. But wrecking tugs built in American ship- 
yards are more costly than if we got them from 
Glasgow or Stockholm, American equipment is 
higher in price than that of Europe, and our 
wrecking crews get almost twice as much money 
as crews on the other side of the Atlantic. 
Therefore, our charges have to be higher. 

“ In the salvage business, though, as you 
know, time is a prime consideration. A day or 
two of delay may make an enormous difference. 
Therefore, an American company, with wreck- 
ing headquarters at Boston, New York, Wil- 
mington, Norfolk, Beaufort, Nassau and Gal- 
veston has a strangle-hold on American salvage 
business. There are other good companies be- 
sides ours, but we’ve got the coast pretty well 
covered. 

“ When it comes to the question of raising 
torpedoed ships, however, our American over- 
head expense would be against us. Isn’t most 
of the big stuff around the British coasts?” 

“ Yes, Dad,” Latimer agreed, “ but there’s 
such a lot of it to be done that British salvers 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 343 


can’t do it all. And they can’t trust the Germans. 
They’ve tried that, but German divers, under 
English pay, were found to be engaged in still 
further damaging the ships they were sent down 
to repair. Every salvage company in the world 
could find work in British seas, now. 

“You see, Dad, one-quarter of the whole 
world’s shipping was sent to the bottom of the 
ocean by German mines and submarines. The 
official figures are 15,053,786 tons. Before the 
war, when labor costs were low and steel was 
cheap, it cost about $75 a ton to build a vessel 
in Europe. The American merchant fleet, as 
built during the war, cost nearly $200 a gross 
ton. Warships, of course, cost a great deal more 
in proportion. Counting cargoes, it would be 
safe to say that during the war at least five bil- 
lion dollars’ worth of shipping went to the bot- 
tom, or more than all the treasure-ships ever 
since gold was first discovered in America. 

“ As Kaempffert said to me once, ‘ Sunken 
treasure has been a lure to man ever since oars 
first dipped in the water or wind swelled a sail, 
but what shall be said of treasure that is meas- 
ured, not by paltry millions, but by magnificent 
intoxicating billions! 


344 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


“ ‘ Is it forever to lie in the mud and sand and 
to corrode and dissolve under the lapse of time, or 
will the covetous, venturesome, romantic spirits 
of two hemispheres strive to raise it with all the 
wonderful technical resources of our engineer- 
ing age? The world, too, is crying out for the 
cargoes of these sunken vessels, for, with the in- 
dustrial halt that the war has produced and with 
the famines that the war has left in its wake, the 
contents of those vessels — when not spoiled — 
would command an enormous price.’ ” 

“ That’s all very well,” objected Captain 
Voley, “ but, after all, for a salvage company, 
it’s a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, or, 
if you like it better, of dollars and cents. Have 
you got your eye on any special piece of work? ” 
“ There’s the Garg antic, Dad! ” 

“ You haven’t any notion of tackling that, 
have you? ” 

“ Young Chapitt and I were talking over it, 
when I was in London. We thought it could be 
done. Her hull’s worth a good two millions, and 
a big part of her cargo is copper ingots from the 
Western States which was on its way to England 
for munition manufacturers. Copper doesn’t 
rust or spoil.” 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 345 


Captain Voley shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Where does she lie? ” he asked. 

“ Between Bull Rocks and Dursey Island at 
the entrance to Bantry Bay, on the southwest 
corner of Ireland. She’s in about twenty-seven 
fathoms of water, on a rocky bottom. 

“ Her crew got to land safely, and the cap- 
tain reported that she had struck a mine, and 
gone down by the head. She floated for fifteen 
minutes, after striking, so that the hole can’t be 
beyond patching. The captain said that he 
thought he could have brought her into port, but 
that the plates of the fore bulkhead had been so 
spread apart by the shock that he couldn’t shore 
it up and stop the leak.” 

“ What did you want to do, Lat? Build a 
coffer-dam 162 feet high? ” 

“ No, Dad. I thought we could raise her with 
pontoons, on a straight lift.” 

“ But the Gargantic must be of nine or ten 
thousand tons register! ” 

“ Over ten.” 

“ And two thousand is regarded as about the 
limit. And she’s loaded with copper! You’re 
mad, Lat! ” 

“ There’s no reason why there should be any 


346 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


limit to pontoons,” was the retort. “ We’re only 
beginning to develop modern salvage, Dad. I 
thought of using these new vertical pontoons. 
The water’s deep enough to use them to advan- 
tage. They’d have to be big, of course, bigger 
than anything ever yet built. Each one would 
be self-contained, with its own pumping ma- 
chinery gasoline-driven. 

“ I got estimates on these. The lowest bid I 
got was from Sweden. They’ll cost, at present 
prices, $9,000 apiece at the shipyard, and, as 
you know, Swedish steel is good quality.” 

“ And how many do you reckon you’ll need — 
one or two? ” 

“ Forty. See here, Dad,” and, taking pencil 
and note-book from his pocket, Latimer pro- 
ceeded to figure out and design with a great deal 
of technical detail, the cubic capacity of these 
vertical pontoons, their lifting power, and the 
dead weight of the Gargantic and her cargo at 
the pressure depth of twenty-seven fathoms. 
“ Thirty-four or thirty-five of these huge pon- 
toons ought to do it, you see,” he concluded, 
“ but with forty of them, she ought to come up, 
easy.” 

“ Perhaps.” Captain Voley’s tone was un- 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 347 

convinced. “ Even so, that’s $360,000 cash out- 
lay.” 

“ We’ll get that back. I’ve seen the owners. 
They offered to pay $750,000 flat for the Gar - 
gantic and her cargo, when towed into Queens- 
town Harbor, in sufficiently good shape for the 
cargo to be unloaded into lighters and for the 
ship herself to be dry-docked.” 

“Well they might!” commented the salver, 
who felt, himself, that he could have got more, 
had he been in charge of the negotiations. 

“ Even so, Dad, if we allow $150,000 for the 
actual work and $360,000 for the pontoons, we’d 
make nearly a quarter of a million profit, over 
and above the investment, and have the pontoons 
ready to tackle another job.” 

“ And what did you expect me to do? ” 

“ Back the scheme,” answered Latimer. 
“ The Swedish shipbuilders said they’d accept 
half the money down, and the rest on three 
months’ and six months’ notes of the Chapitt & 
Voley Company. That way, we wouldn’t have 
to pay out all the money until we got the salvage 
price from the owners of the Gar gantic” 

“ If you raise her! ” 

“ We will! ” 


348 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

Captain Voley thought for a moment and then 
shook his head. 

“ No, Lat,” he answered, “ I can’t agree to 
that. Old Man Chapitt leaves practically every- 
thing in my hands, and half a million dollars at 
a single crack is too big a speculation for me to 
tackle. If our name goes back of you, we’d have 
to carry through, even if we lost money, in order 
to keep up the reputation of the firm. I wouldn’t 
be justified in risking possible bankruptcy by a 
hazardous investment that would certainly be not 
less than half a million and might easily reach to 
double that sum, in case of unexpected trouble. 

“ Better give up the idea, Latimer. There’s 
plenty to be done in the regular way of salvage 
along these coasts, and there’s charge of the 
Beaufort station awaiting you, whenever you 
want to take it. It’s better business to tackle 
only the jobs which are tolerably sure to bring 
in a profit, even if a small one, and, that way, 
you can keep on the right side of the ledger all 
the time.” 

Latimer frowned. Since his boyhood he had 
dreamed of the big things. At “ Tech,” he 
had met young fellows as his classmates, who 
since had become the engineers of mighty 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 349 


projects. The World War had shown him 
European nations engaged in ventures on a 
colossal scale. The daring of his grandfather, 
the old wrecker, was in his veins, though in mod- 
ernized form. This idea of doing things quietly 
and surely struck him as “ Bahaman and local.” 
It seemed to throw him back to things familiar 
in his childhood. 

“ What’s my interest in the firm worth? ” he 
queried abruptly. 

Captain Voley raised his eyebrows. This was 
unexpected, and displeasing. 

“ So you’re willing to sell out and quit the 
firm ! ” he exclaimed. “ I didn’t think that of 
you, Lat ! ” 

“ I can’t be pinned down to crawling around 
the coast, picking up a schooner or a tramp 
steamer here and there, when there’s really big 
work waiting to be done,” the young fellow burst 
out. “ I don’t want to settle down and be a piker 
all my life! Think of the opportunities, Dad! 
And then to say that the Chapitt & Voley peo- 
ple didn’t have the nerve to go in ! ” 

The obstinate out-thrust of the chin reminded 
Captain Voley of the lad’s grandfather. When 
the “ Admiral ” had assumed that expression, 


350 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

there was nothing to be said. It was better, 
thought the salver, to let the young engineer 
have a taste of his own foolishness than to risk 
the reputation of the firm. 

“ I suppose,” he answered slowly, “ your in- 
terest in the firm is worth about $400,000. That 
is, I know a Key West man who would buy out 
your interest for that sum.” 

“ And young Chapitt agreed to put in just as 
much as I could get! ” 

“ Have you that in writing? ” 

“ Yes, Dad. And I’ve the contract with the 
Gar g antic owners in writing, too, and the Swe- 
dish estimates.” 

“ Are you sure, Latimer,” demanded his fa- 
ther, seriously, “ that you want me to sell out 
your share of the Chapitt & Voley firm? I warn 
you, if you do, you’ll have trouble in buying it 
back!” 

Latimer hesitated. He saw how keenly his fa- 
ther felt this desertion and hated to disappoint 
him. Yet his purpose remained firm. 

“ Dad,” he asked, “ could you arrange the deal 
so that I could capitalize my share for $400,000 
with the option of buying it back with ten per 
cent, interest in six months’ time? I’m sure I 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 351 


can get up the Gargantic! And ten per cent, for 
six months is big interest for any one who wants 
to make the investment.” 

“ Yes,” agreed the other, “ I think I could do 
that. This Key West man is a big banker, and 
if I endorsed the paper, it would be accepted. 
The assets of the Chapitt & Voley firm, now, are 
valued at over two million dollars.” 

“ Then do it, Dad! I’ll be back in six months 
from to-day with the money, and the interest, 
and a fortune besides! ” 

That very afternoon, he cabled to the Swedish 
shipbuilding company to begin work on the pon- 
toons. 

Despite the utmost dispatch, three months 
passed in the preliminary work. Young Chapitt 
had put in his share of $400,000 as agreed upon, 
and since the Chapitt & Voley firm had abso- 
lutely forbidden that their name should be asso- 
ciated with the work, the two young fellows or- 
ganized and incorporated themselves as the 
“ Gargantic Salvage Company.” 

It had been decided to increase the number of 
pontoons to forty-eight, lest there should be an 
under-calculation at any point, or some unknown 
suction from an undercurrent, and the two 


352 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


young partners had gathered divers and wreck- 
ing equipment from various British com- 
panies. 

As the Gargantic was lying on a rocky bot- 
tom, there had been no great difficulty in passing 
the huge wire cables under her. At a few points, 
parts of the rock had been blasted out under her 
keel. Meantime, while the pontoons were being 
built, the fore bulkhead of the great steamer had 
been shored and patched by divers, and, despite 
the enormous depth at which the men had to 
work, almost a complete new temporary bow had 
been built. 

Notwithstanding their optimism, the two part- 
ners were beginning to look blue. They had ex- 
pected to spend $150,000 in work additional to 
the purchase of the pontoons. They had already 
expended $250,000 in under-water operations, 
before the pontoons arrived, and, having raised 
the number to forty-eight, the Swedish bill was 
$432,000. 

Even if they should succeed without a hitch, 
the payment from the owners of the Gargantic 
would leave them but a small margin. This 
margin, moreover, would be wiped out in the ac- 
tual work of raising and towing. More than once 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 353 


Latimer thought of his father’s warning, but 
choked back the feeling of regret. 

A few days before the crucial test, the Hum- 
ming-bird sped up to the site of operations near 
Dursey Island. Captain Voley was aboard, but 
disclaimed any intention of interfering in the 
work. 

“ I’ve had a bit more experience than you 
youngsters,” he said, “ and in salvage work, al- 
most anything is apt to happen.” 

Latimer was delighted to have his father there, 
but, at the same time, it made him all the more 
nervous. Captain Yoley stuck to his word, and, 
when the entire system of operations had been 
laid before him, he made no comment, whatever 
might be his thoughts. 

At last came the great day. The pontoons 
were all affixed, the cables adjusted to the exact 
length, and the pumping began. 

Latimer and young Chapitt, each with a tele- 
phone receiver clamped over his ears, awaited 
with keenest anxiety the reports from the divers 
on the sea-bottom, who were in communication 
with them by submarine telephone. 

“ She’s righting!” came the first welcome 


news. 


354 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


Two minutes’ wait — two long anxious minutes 
— then: 

“ Her bow’s lifting! ” 

And, almost immediately after, a simultaneous 
warning from the two divers stationed below, 
one on each side of the wreck: 

“ Stern sagging! More lift on the stern! ” 

This was menacing, for everything depended 
on the weight being equalized. 

Frantically Latimer signalled to the pontoons 
at the stern to keep the pumps going at full 
speed, and to the pontoons near the bow to stop 
pumping. 

Would she rise or slide back? 

Came from the deep, the cry: 

“ She lifts!” 

With a simultaneous impulse, the two young 
partners clasped hands. Unless something hap- 
pened, all was well now, for every inch the 
sunken steamer rose, the less was the weight of 
water pressing upon her. 

Slowly the pontoons lifted, until the Gargan- 
tic was five feet off the bottom. Then there was 
a halt, while the divers examined every cable- 
sling and made sure that the great steamship 
was on an absolutely even keel. 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 355 


The signal to pump was given again, until the 
top of the steamer’s mast appeared above water, 
to be greeted with a triumphant shout. Success 
seemed assured. 

There was a temptation, then, to set the force- 
pumps at work, and try whether the Gargantic 
could rise by her own buoyancy, but, especially 
with his father there, Latimer played safe. The 
steamer was towed to a flat shoal, which had 
been picked out a month before, and there 
stranded lightly as the tide went down. The 
slack of the cables was taken up on the huge 
vertical pontoons, and, as the tide rose, the Gar- 
gantic floated anew. 

The pumps resumed their work. 

Slowly the great steamer rose from her three 
years’ exile under the sea. At last her funnel 
appeared. 

The wrecking steamer was then towed across 
her stern — her sides were encircled by the ring 
of pontoons — and the great improved Drysdale 
pumps commenced to pour out their floods of 
water. 

The monster vessel answered gallantly. Her 
ventilators showed above their surface, and then 
her decks came awash, the pontoons, meanwhile, 


356 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 

keeping the slings taut to keep them from slip- 
ping. 

So well had the divers done their work below 
water, and so completely had everything been 
safeguarded that modern engineering skill could 
devise, that from the moment the decks of the 
Gargantic became awash, the wrecking steamer 
nosing her stern, the hull held buoyancy. 

The sky, however, had clouded. Fitful gusts 
were rising. The sea was choppy and slate- 
colored. Queenstown Harbor was several hours’ 
towage away. 

But Latimer, who had spared no expense, had 
hired the largest wrecking tug to be found in 
Liverpool, a Leviathan of tugs, big enough to be 
able to tow even so heavy a load as the Gargantic 
at six-knot speed. 

It was well that he had done so. 

As tug and tow entered Queenstown Harbor 
and passed Spike and Haulbowline Islands, the 
gale broke with fury and the sea rose high, as 
though vengeful at having been compelled to dis- 
gorge its prey. 

Then came a wild orgy of unloading, night 
and day work, for every hour that the pumps 
clanked and the wrecking crew stood by, cost 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 357 


many a hundred dollars, and the fore bulkhead, 
while it held, was not to be trusted. The tem- 
porary bow, too, looked flimsy and uncertain. 
Yet, by strenuous efforts and the aid of every 
man that could be brought from shore, the huge 
craft was unloaded in two days and two nights, 
and towed into dry dock. 

At last Latimer could breathe a sigh of relief. 
The great job was done. 

Aboard the Humming-bird , that night, Cap- 
tain Voley and the two young partners went 
over the financial situation. 

“How much has it cost you?” the salvage 
chief asked. 

Ruefully, Latimer and young Chapitt brought 
out their account books. 

They read — $910,000! 

“ And you’re to get $750,000 for the job? ” 

“ We’ve got the pontoons, Dad.” 

“ Ay, and they cost you $9,000 apiece. Be- 
sides, Latimer, you haven’t figured the ten per 
cent, interest on your $400,000. That makes a 
cost of $950,000 in all.” 

“ But we can re-sell the pontoons, sir.” 

“ Whom to? Ships like the Garg antic aren’t 
raised every day! But I’m willing to talk busi- 


358 THE WRECK-HUNTERS 


ness with you, at that. That is, the Chapitt & 
Voley Company is willing to talk business with 
the Gargantic Salvage Company. You paid 
$9,000 apiece for those pontoons. It was too 
much ! I could have got them cheaper than that. 
I could have told you at the time, but you wanted 
to go ahead in your own way. They’re worth 
about $8,000. I’ll buy them, from you, second- 
hand, for $7,500.” 

“ All of them? ” 

“ No. I’ll buy thirty of them. As your books 
stand, you show a deficit of $200,000. If I buy 
thirty pontoons at $225,000, that will clear your 
expenses, give you $25,000 cash for your six 
months’ work between you, and let you have 
eighteen pontoons left. If you can sell these 
for $100,000 you’ll have made a fair profit on 
your transaction. Or, if you prefer, you can 
pay your interest, and renew your loan. Then 
you can continue with your own company and 
keep the pontoons for yourself.” 

Latimer turned to his father. 

“Dad!” he exclaimed. “Haven’t we made 
good? Haven’t we done the biggest piece of 
salvage that’s been done since the war? And 
haven’t we— on your figures— cleared $125,000 


TORPEDOED BILLIONS 359 


in six months on an investment of $800,000? 
Isn’t that good business — seventeen per cent, on 
the investment? ” 

“ It is,” replied Captain Voley, “ I don’t deny 
it. But what would have happened to you, if 
you’d been half a day later getting into harbor, 
or if the gale had been half a day earlier? ” 

“ That was part of the risk we ran. But we 
got away with it! I’ve heard you say, yourself, 
that in salvage, it’s the results that count. We’ve 
done what we set out to do, haven’t we?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then,” protested the young engineer, “ why 
don’t you, in the name of the Chapitt & Voley 
Company, take us in as a subsidiary concern, not 
so that you’ll be responsible for our operations, 
but so that we can work together, the way that 
Grandfather and Old Man Chapitt worked to- 
gether on the raising of the St. Jago? ” 

“ It might be done,” agreed Captain Voley. 
“ But what will you want to tackle next? ” 
Latimer looked across the table at his partner. 
“ We’ve already fixed that,” he said. “ We’re 
going to raise the Lusitania ." 


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